The King of Standard - Take a look at the top 10 deck lists from the first few major tournaments since Zendikar’s release and you’ll find that Jund-aggro is holding half or more of those slots, finishing in first place in every one. Before you abandon all hope and join the masses running Jund, let’s take some time to examine why this deck is so dominant and just what it will take to topple the current king of the standard format.
The Mold – Presented here is Jack Wang’s SCG $5k Philadelphia championship winning deck from the first major tournament since Zendikar’s release. I will be referring to this build throughout due to most top 10 finishers being variants on this specific build.
Jack Wang's Jund-Aggro
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Jund Post-Zendikar - At first glance Jund-aggro seems to have lost some staples due to set rotation, and has not gained anything outside of Goblin Ruinblaster in the sideboard. Jund-aggro has shifted its approach to victory rather subtly. This build contains less haste, with Boggart Ram-Gang and Tattermunge Maniac gone. Gone are the days of win early or not at all. Jund-aggro has developed a much stronger middle-late game. With Garruk Wildspeaker making three Broodmate Dragons feasible, as well as a cycled Resounding Thunder within reach due to Garruk’s “Untap two target lands” ability, add to that Sprouting Thrinax’s tokens blocking until you get the lands needed, Jund-aggro is still a viable force after the initial rush.
What Jund lost and gained is not what matters most to why it is dominating the tournament scene post-Zendikar, but rather what control decks have lost post-rotation. Cryptic Command’s exit is the most obvious blow to control builds, however the loss of Broken Ambitions is just as detrimental. Control has no reliable option for disrupting Jund’s early assault with counterspells. There are options, yet none as reliable or flat out good as this pair of “no” spells.
The Aggro Competition - On paper Naya-aggro looks to have better creatures with Baneslayer Angel, Woolly Thoctar, Bloodbraid Elf, Ranger of Eos, Wild Nacatl, etc. It’s simply not as aggressive and lacks the key component to Jund-aggro’s dominance over the current field. That component is Blightning. Forcing an aggro build to top-deck before you or discard removal spells is an enormous advantage.
Why Jund-Aggro is Dominating – Now to delve a little bit deeper into just what makes Jund-aggro so darned good. Card advantage, board presence, direct damage, removal: This deck has it all. Every single main decked card outside of Lightning Bolt and Terminate is a two-for-one. Bloodbraid Elf and Bituminous Blast being the most gratuitous by granting a free spell. Broodmate Dragon and Sprouting Thrinax giving free creatures. Blightning dealing 3 damage and forcing an opponent to discard 2 cards. Maelstrom Pulse destroying multiple creatures, enchantments, and artifacts as well as handling Planeswalkers. The cheap mana costing Putrid Leech pumping to a 4/4 for two life points. Garruk Wildspeaker being a creature generator, mana ramper and possible overrun game-ender. Add to these Goblin Ruinblaster destroying lands, the best counter-control cards in Duress and Thought Hemorrhage, as well as Jund Charm’s versatility out of the sideboard and anyone can see why this is a frightening deck to play against.
Help! – So what can be done to take down this monster of speed, aggression and now mid-late game viability? The answers are slim as of right now with standard having a very small card pool to choose from until Worldwake and the subsequent expansion are released but there are answers out there. Let’s examine just what cards pose the biggest threats to Jund-aggro.
1. Sphinx of Jwar Isle: 5/5, flying, shroud, look at the top card of your library whenever you like. When a jund player says he’d rather face Baneslayer Angel than this creature you know it’s special. Jund’s mid-late game has improved significantly but still relies heavily on stacked removal and burn spells to kill an opponent’s bombs and clear the way for a Broodmate Dragon or its mate to deal the game winning blow. Jund currently has very few options to deal with this card. Double blocking with dragons or plucking them from the deck with Thought Hemorrhage are jund’s only options for survival against the mighty sphinx. Don’t discount the “you may look at the top card of your library whenever you like” ability either. Deciding what cards to discard when hit with a Blightning, or whether to use that Celestial Purge or not can be a lot easier when you know what you’re drawing next. The high cost makes surviving long enough to play this card a tough obstacle to overcome. In a deck stacked with removal and counter spells playing very few creatures this jund killer is playable and could be a key component in ending jund’s reign of terror.
2. Wall of Denial: 0/8, Defender, Flying Shroud. For three measly mana a jund creature of your choice is nullified for the entire game. Jund has no answer to this card outside of swinging with more creatures because surely your deck will contain larger threats that would be targeted by a possible Thought Hemorrhage. The fact Wall of Denial is flying helps against Broodmate Dragon immensely. Just hope that the jund build you’re facing hasn’t main decked or sideboarded Great Sable Stag which will happen if this card and the aforementioned Sphinx of Jwar Isle see more play.
3. Double Negative: Counter up to two target spells. Bloodbraid Elf is arguably the best card in standard. This card nullifies it as well as Bituminous Blast. Stopping the flow of jund dead in it’s tracks is phenomenal. If blue and red reside in your deck consider this as an option for disrupting jund’s aggression.
4. Celestial Purge: Exile target black or red permanent. Any deck relying on Path to Exile as its primary source of removal needs to run this card in the sideboard for jund matchups. Giving jund-aggro a free land early is not a good idea. It’s fast enough as it is without your helping matters. Late game Path to Exile isn’t so bad but good luck getting there without Celestial Purge. Sprouting Thrinax being unable to birth tokens if removed by Celestial Purge is a great bonus. Sprouting Thrinax tokens and Beast tokens generated by Garruk being immune to this card show just how versatile jund has become.
5. Goblin Ruinblaster: 2/1 Haste. Kicker: Destroy target non-basic land. Jund gives up a secret to defeating it in it’s own sideboard. These are in the sideboard for the mirror match and for good reason. More than half of the deck’s lands are non-basic. If a player can get this out with kicker on turn four or earlier they could possibly cripple their jund playing opponent by denying him the third mana color required to run the deck effectively. At worst destroying a land slows things up a bit giving you time to draw that key removal spell or gain significant creature advantage.
6.Baneslayer Angel: 5/5, Flying, First-Strike, Lifelink, Protection from Demons and Dragons. Protection from jund’s Broodmate Dragons, First-Strike means it can’t be blocked and bolted. Lifelink kills an opponent while giving you life. Sounds great. So why so low on the list? Every jund deck holds onto that maelstrom pulse or terminate in anticipation of this bomb. I’ve seen Baneslayer Angels pitched to the graveyard to early Blightnings in favor of removal for the coming rush. Malakir Bloodwitch is another option for the jund player, though she hasn’t reared her head yet due to there being no need as of right now. Whenever a Baneslayer Angel does win the game against Jund more often than not it’s due to a misplay or bad draws rather than superior strategy. Every jund player knows she’s coming and holds onto that removal spell especially for her. With most white decks not finding room for Brave the Elements the threat is not that large.
7. Rhox War Monk: 3/4 Lifelink. Just out of Lightning Bolt’s kill range and the Lifelink ability make this a great creature against jund. At worst he eats a Maelstrom Pulse that would have otherwise hit a Rafiq of the Many or Baneslayer Angel. At best he does some damage and you gain some life. The life gain is not to be marginalized. Jund has shored up its late game effectiveness quite a bit but it is still not without faults. Some extra life points could be a deciding factor.
8. Day of Judgment: Surprised to not see the board sweep higher up in the list? You shouldn’t be. Sprouting Thrinax generates tokens and maintains board presence but this is not the key reason for Day of Judgment’s relatively low placing. Experienced players know that nearly any deck running white will have this in it and play accordingly. “Slow rolling” is a phrase I use to describe the strategy when jund faces a deck containing this card. The strategy involves not overextending your creatures. Play just enough to consistently deal damage or stand against their threats while holding onto a key Broodmate Dragon or other creatures for after the sweep. It’s not always possible, however it is fairly effective when you consider how much removal and burn most jund decks contain to maintain creature advantage and force the sweep.
9.Pithing Needle: Activated abilities of sources within a chosen card cannot be activated. An oldie but goodie. Pithing Needle has bounced in and out of top deck sideboards over the years but nobody ever trades their last two and for good reason. Costing only one mana, Pithing Needle early keeps that Putrid Leech a puny 2/2. Drawing a Pithing Needle in the middle to late game stops the creature generation and “Untap two target lands” ability of Garruk. The “Untap two target lands” ability nullified could mean not seeing a Broodmate Dragon on turn five or a cycled Resounding Thunder on turn 6.
10. Various Protection from Black Creatures: White Knight, Great Sable Stag, Devout Lightcaster, Valeron Outlander. With most of its creatures and nearly all of its removal having a black mana symbol in its casting cost protection from black seems like it would be a great ability to have on your creature. It is for the most part but jund has cards available to adapt to this rather easily. You can see this in some tournament winning builds already. Including less terminates and more burn spells such as Burst Lightning seems like the most accepted method to dealing with the pro-black beasties. Great Sable Stag, Beast tokens and Sprouting Thrinax tokens are another reason this isn’t a sure-fire strategy to defeating jund. It is still very plausible though as the meta-game evolves because there are still builds that over stack Terminate and Maelstrom Pulse while skimping on the required burn to deal with protection from black.
Other Options for Dismantling Jund: Mind Sludge, Dauntless Escort, Sphinx of Lost Truths, Woolly Thoctar, Volcanic Fallout, Harm’s Way,Ajani Vengeant, Elspeth Knight-Errant, Vampire Hexmage, Enlisted Wurm, Rampaging Baloths, Oblivion Ring
I hope this article stirs the creative juices of those who read it, and inspires players to try out some of these cards in your own build, in hopes of slaying the dragon that is Jund-aggro. While some are obvious choices and others are a bit less apparent, all of these cards are a problem for the Jund player and there is no doubt in my mind some will be included in the first non-red,-black-green deck to win a major tournament post-Zendikar. While the standard card pool is rather small at the moment there is still room for improving all deck types and I believe Jund will be equaled or dethroned well before Worldwake’s release.
Outside of Jack Wang’s championship winning deck list I gathered all information for this article by running a similar Jund-aggro deck since Zendikar’s release. I’ve been playing Jund variants since 1995 when I splashed green with Karplusan Forest to fit Ernham Djinn’s into my black and red aggro deck. I truly love the flavor and feel of running Jund but feel there are too many Jund decks being run presently and it’s making standard format somewhat un-enjoyable. I want to face decks that are equal or better outside of a mirror match and look forward to doing so. So far the best candidates I’ve faced are Boros Landfall which if functioning on all cylinders is faster than Jund and odd control decks that contain a few creatures, but these decks aren’t nearly as versatile or well-equipped to face other deck types as Jund currently is.
Update!: The same day I wrote this article a Blue-White-Red control deck was guided to victory at a major tournament (Pro-Tour Austin LCQ). The following day a Blue-White control build won another. Perhaps The king was crowned a bit early?
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Nice article ! !
Im sick of Jund deck :S and i think you give nice cards to take it down.
What major tournaments are you referring to in your note at the end there? Link please
I think he was referring to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQV_6aLlUuA
He went 7-2 at the PT Austin LCQ
Can you link to this UWR deck? It sounds like a lot of the cards you mentioned are these colors, so that’s good to hear. I’d love to see it. I was experimenting with UGW, but it just wasn’t working (admittedly, I have certain cards coming in the mail that I think could help)…
It seems that if S1lent were to pick a build to combat Jund, it would be white/blue control. 7 of 10 cards are one of those two colors (or colorless) and UW is already an established deck.
BTW, forgot to mention – very cool article
I love Wall of Denial, I’ve been shocked it’s seen so little use until very recently. I wish there were more great shroud creatures. Sphinx & Wall are very cool, but slow and aren’t necessarily enough.
Fun article! Yeah, Celestial Purge in particular is amazing right now (hitting Jund AND Bushwhacker). Another idea, aside from just a specific card, is simply having exorbitant amounts of removal. After all, Jund typically wins with creatures. If you build a deck with tons of removal and then the ability to win with a spell kill (like some X spell), then you’ll probably have a decent matchup against Jund. I also wonder if Sleep could be useful.
On a different note, I’m a little incredulous that people are tired of Jund already. I mean, I just watched Faeries and 5CC run around for two years, and now people (online, at FNMs, and everywhere else) are tired of Jund after a few weeks? *sigh*
Amen! If Jund means no more Cryptic Command in evry deck I’m fine with that.
MTG players are a fickle bunch though.
Thanks for the kind words. To Jiggy: I’ve played against a deck that utilizes Crypt of Agadeem, Consume Spirit and a ton of cycled creatures. Only problem for that deck is Jund Charm removes their graveyard if they’re lucky enough to stay alive long enough that it matters. Another build is a turbo fog style deck that attempts to fog and use other “no damage dealt” spells until Pyromancer’s Ascension gets it’s counters and then it gets infinite turns with Naya Charm and Time Warp copying themselves until a Banefire and enough mana are played for the kill. Thought Hemorrhage and Jund Charm again cripple this deck. One fairly frustrating and more common happening is draws. I’ve drawn 3 times in 5 rounds recently due to SLOW control builds.
Ah, yes, the Crypt Spirit deck. I have one of those, though not the uber-cycling version. I agree that Jund Charm can get in the way, although I would point out that you don’t have to have a loaded graveyard to kill them. After all, even though Consume Spirit for 42 is cool, you only need it to be for 8-12, sometimes less, which is very doable “raw”.
Oh and I’ve figured out how to get rid of Sphinx of Jwar Isle. Fleshbag Marauder. Can’t believe I forgot about him. I used to sideboard him for Chameleon Colossus. Marauder actually works well because most decks running Sphinx of Jwar Isle only contain it as creatures or possibly Baneslayer Angel and Sphinx of Lost Truths which are dealt with much easier. Another card that gives Jund problems? Swerve. A swerved Blightning or Thought Hemorrhage hurt.
Could it be, that a swerved Thought Hemorrhage usually don’t hurt that much? I think, your opponent names the card and you just redirect the card’s effect to him or her. So usually your opponent names something relevant from your deck like Sphinx of Jwar Isle and it won’t hurt him or her, because this card is not in his or her deck.
The “only” (that’s nonetheless very reasonable) benefit will be that you won’t take the damage and loose those cards.
Or am I wrong at this point?
The deck video linked in the article is not the deck I was referring to. I was actually referring to this 11 Planeswalker packing monster:
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=456591
and the Blue-White deck I was referring to is here.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=456594
Sorry for any confusion.
Yes Swerve is probabbly the best card against jund every non creature spell has only one target and also if you can fit blightnings and sedraxis specters in a deck together its pretty good against them
Cool article, I wonder how much longer jund will stay this good for. I’d also suggest Mindbreak trap here, great against the cascade stuff and a four-mana counter is still useful even if you can’t get it for free.
What do all the Protection from Blacks all have in common? They are all in Lightning Bolt range.
You are right bro !, so what do you suggest?
If you are running a deck with red there are 2 cards you should have 4 of each in your deck. Lightening Bolt and Punishing Fire. Some Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is also another good creature control.
S1lent is dead on…sexxxy too. yum.
to Pes: My understanding is that the player playing Thought Hemorrhage does not name a card until it is “played.” The swerve would allow the “swerver” to name any card they like. I could be absolutely wrong though and have been taken advantage of. This is a question for Arix….
The thought hemorage gets swerved to the jund player but the jund player still has controll over naming the card and could in theory name a a card in his own decklist if he dosent want to draw it in the current matchup (i.e naming blightning agains a deck with 4x swerve) I am currently 8-0-0 with my jund deck and have had a judge rule it in my favor. I also want to mention that an inteligent jund player will have ruinblaster x4 in his deck to deal with double negative and swerve (removing lands to make swerve or double negative uncastable) Another big point is playing blightning on the end of an opponents turn so they swerve to you then you draw and play bloodbraid with no fear of double neg (island being tapped from swerve requiring the opponent to have not played a blue spell on their turn and have 3 blue sources.
Good luck playing Blightning at the end of your opponent’s turn. Unless you’re cascading into it with Bituminous Blast (in which case you can’t even be sure to hit it), you can’t play it at opponent’s EOT because it’s a Sorcery.
Travis is correct regarding a Swerve on a Thought Hemorrhage. The card is not named until the spell resolves; however, the person who cast TH is still the one who gets to name the card, even if he is the target of the spell. So yes, if there are any dead cards in his deck, he gets the advantage of removing them from his library to prevent dead draws.
I thought Swerve would be a lot stronger than it has been in my experience. Swerving a Blightning is great and all, and Swerving a Banefire is the tops, but I prefer the added versatility of Negate, simply due to the fact that it can counter planeswalkers. Blue does not have a lot of versatile counterspells anymore; our spells need to be able to handle as many situations as possible, and using Swerve—which I admit can certainly have more upside—is just too situational for me. High risk; high reward. But when you’re facing a Garruk with a Swerve in hand, you’ll be sorry you chose Swerve over Negate.
Solid article yet again boys which gives me quite a bit to think about. A major reason I do not play Jund aggro is because it is popular – I would prefer to develop answers against it instead and you have provided quite a resource here. I concur with your list. To add to it, I will suggest some mana disruption may be in order. I am looking into how viable cards such as Spreading Seas and Convincing Mirage to spoil the Jund party.
Ive got the complete answer to jund, I destroyed a dude playing this deck He said he was never beaten so bad..and i dont even have a single creature in my deck.
i went 4-0 to begin then got beat by red deck wins haha it happens