Do you remember cascading a bloodbraid into a blightning or a sprouting thrinax? Pepperidge farm remembers. Things may have changed but our game plan sure hasn't. It's only grown more refined with age.
I know other people out there are making primers for Jund but I thought I would try my hand at explaining the list as well. The goal of the deck is to play the attrition game plan. We start by removing key threats and discarding key cards to weaken our opponent's strategy. We then try to turn the corner quickly giving them no chance to recover while we trample over them on the back of one to two threats with burn support. Thanks in no small part to the well balanced and varied removal spells at our disposal, we have a game plan against any deck we can be paired up against. This is a deck that truly rewards knowledge and understanding of the intricacies of other strategies.
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Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer Dark confidant was a card that jund happily ran for years. Ragavan might not be a perfect card draw engine but at 1 mana (sometimes two) with the ability to ramp like a mana dork while also providing a decent little clock, ragavan is a perfect include for jund decks moving forward. people joke that he is the next tarmogoyf and they just might be right. Although the price tag is rough, he just does too much not to consider him a valuable resource.
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Lightning Bolt Arguably the best removal spell ever printed, used in almost every deck that allows for it. Bolt is technically a model spell that reads like this. "Deal 3 to target creature or deal 3 to target planeswalker or deal 3 to target player." Spells with extra modes are extremely important in a deck that wants to answer everything and bolt is just that.
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Fatal Push Our fifth and sixth copy of bolt. While not as good against the field as bolt, push has its own applications. having the early interaction is key in the burn match and the odd low to the ground deck like prowess. This card also comes up against infect, hammer time and any other deck where our turn one removal is crucial. it's not always the best card to have but it's crucial in helping us stabilize. The reason we push for 6 one drop removal spells is to increase our odds of hitting one in our opening hand.
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Inquisition of Kozilek the back bone of every mid-ranged deck is a strong discard suite. being able to pitch problematic threats before they're even cast can help steal games you wouldn't otherwise have any business winning. it's also a wonderful way to make sure a threat gets to see play in a match where your opponent runs as much removal as you do.
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Thoughtseize for the same reason we run inquisition it's also fair to back it up with a thoughtseize as well. being able to remove late game bombs from your opponents hand is necessary in several match-ups and thoughtseize is the king of hand disruption. the only reason we don't split the difference and run three of each is because the damage can and will matter.
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Tarmogoyf tarmogoyf is a strong beater with few flaws other then being slightly overly reliant on the graveyard. this has never stopped him before though as he continues to be one of the strongest yet cheapest to cast finishers in modern. a two drop 8/9 or lower is nothing to sneeze at and those stats can be significantly beefed up very early in the game with the help of our best friends, removal and discard.
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Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger Kroxa functions as beaters five and six alongside goyf. In the early game, kroxa does a decent job helping pick apart out opponent's hand while also being a reasonable discard target for both Spyro and Lili. In the late game Kroxa is a resilient clock that represents a potential nine damage per swing. Ultimately, kroxa helps us stabilize and turn the corner in a major way.
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Assassin's Trophy You could theoretically run a mix of terminate and abrupt decay in place of this spell. Both play a similar role, but I find myself wanting to homogenize the removal suite to give us better chances at having an out. In my opinion, trophy is the penultimate removal spell in all of magic's history. with it we now have access to a removal spell that covers every base while also answering tron lands with ease. the land it gives your opponent can be a hindrance in some cases, like the burn match or the odd creature deck, but I believe that is largely outclassed by its abilities as an answer. Cards like ragavan, wrenn, utopia sprawl and hierach make the land screw plan unappealing in the meta as it stands anyways so your far better off being able to answer titan, teferi and murktide with the same card to give yourself more chances to hit it.
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Wrenn and Six the flagship card of modern horizons. Wrenn and six has been a welcome addition to the deck ever since his arrival. when paired with a fetch-land, peatland or raging ravine, W6 gives us access to perfect mana, draw power and recursion all in one. When paired with a Lilly you have a card advantage engine that can break parity. W6 gets lands to pitch to Lilly not to mention you can use him to ping small threats so your Lilly can edict the rest away without fail. lastly it should be noted that W6 can deal damage to walkers and your opponent as well, sometimes stalling for an ult or chipping in for damage is just what the doctor ordered. and don't forget, his ult wins games on its own!
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Seasoned Pyromancer Seasoned Pyro serves a purpose similar to bloodbraid of old. Having access to a way to gas up our hand after we enter top deck mode is important in the grind. it ensures we can stay one step ahead of our opponent while generating value. you can also use him to turn late game thoughtseizes into tokens and cards to keep in the race. The ability to flash it back at instant speed later in the game for a few more bodies is a useful clause as well. Either as an army in a can or as a way to draw cards, even when it feels marginal, Pyro is always capable of doing something for the matchup.
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Liliana of the Veil Liliana is the MVP of modern mid-ranged decks everywhere she swiftly locks out almost every opponent if left unchecked and her abilities work really well with the theme of putting everyone in top deck mode. often considered one of the most powerful edict effects in magic, lily will always slot into mid-ranged decks helping them function like well oiled machines.
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Fury Modern horizons two brought every deck a new list of tools to help with the ever-growing metagame. Some got solitude, others got subtlety. We, however, got endurance and fury. For zero mana, jund now has access to a crowd control pseudo wrath effect. This boy can take out armies of dorks as well as planeswalkers and even the everpresent omnath! It helps that if you can cast it for five, fury becomes a solid clock that's relatively hard to block thanks to doublestrike.
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Blackcleave Cliffs the fast land this deck runs to fuel out all of the potential turn one plays in this deck with no damage. this is really important against a large range of aggro decks like elves, burn, affinity and hammer time. it should also be noted that a turn one blackcleave with a fatal push in hand is a great start to pull against any low to the ground deck.
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Nurturing Peatland horizon canopy was the most important drawpower available for aggro decks back in the day. Now we have access to a copy that's in our colors. It never hurts to be able to draw cards when you need them in the late game. It also should be noted that this land can be looped by W6 to draw an additional card every turn at the cost of your land drop.
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Raging Ravine having a man land in modern was once a must for almost every control or mid-ranged deck in modern. being able to deal damage to your opponent after the dust settles from a wrath effect or even just being able to take out a planeswalker after they tap out to cast it can be a really useful effect.
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Verdant Catacombs, Bloodstained Mire being able to fetch in a three color deck is very important. it allows you to assemble all of your colors while sifting lands out of your deck to increase your chances of drawing powerful spells instead.
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Overgrown Tomb, Blood Crypt, Stomping Ground these are the duel color lands available to three color decks in modern with at least one of each a three color deck can assemble all of its colors as early as turn two. double bloodcrypt gives us a higher chance of being able to pull off our turn one plays.
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Swamp, Forest, Mountain it's always important to have access to basics no matter what deck your playing. having basics lets you stay in the game against blood moon, path to exile, assassin's trophy, and field of ruin. they also let you take less damage off of fetch lands when your already meeting your color requirements. double swamp lets us cast a lily through a bloodmoon. (ours and our opponent's)
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Engineered Explosives Sometimes what you really need is a solid removal spell. Being able to blow up tokens, multiple one drops, artifacts and enchantments is no laughing matter. Be sure to bring them in against army decks or decks with lots of 1 drops like lantern control, hammer and food.
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Nihil Spellbomb graveyard hate is super necessary at all levels of play. having a few of these available provides the perfect support against any grave based strategy. The effective mana cost and ability to replace itself means this card will almost always see play in sideboards everywhere. This card comes in against dredge and underworld breach. It also has game against Yawgmoth value combo.
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Alpine Moon the moon helps us deal with urza's saga as well as the occasional tron or valkut lands deck, just a good include if you want to effectively deal with a specific land.
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Tourach, Dread Cantor Having access to a powerful pro white creature in the Sideboard is important with solitude running around these days. it also does a decent job of cleaning up our opponent's hand so that we can fight back against control decks and four color piles with a little more ease. not to mention it grows with every discard so it pairs well with lili, k Command, and all our thoughtseize effects.
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Boseiju, Who Endures this land has quickly proven itself to be a new staple in the modern format. Being able to take out lands, artifacts, and enchantments at instant speed and without being counterable and with wrenn and six recursion support makes this card a death sentence for decks who rely on artifacts or enchantments to assemble a game plan. In some cases you can even assemble a lock by getting this card into play in top deck mode, draining your opponents resources with a land and a wrenn while you dig for a threat to close the game with.
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Collective Brutality obviously this spell's biggest application is against burn where all of its modes can and should be used. this spell is also online in any uninteractive match. storm gets speed bumped by hand disruption which is just what the doctor ordered. It also has heaps of application against infect, seeing as how it can kill a dork and remove a pump spell. ultimately brutality is just a solid flex card for multiple matchups. Unless your confident about your matches, I wouldn't leave home without it.
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Endurance double green is hard to achieve some games when we already want double black and double red, but this guy sure is worth the effort. graveyards are scary for fair decks these days. its important that we maintain control over them so we don't end up getting overrun. It's also important that we supplement one instant speed yard interaction with another. Endurance has the added benefit of being a 3/4 body with reach. Though the body is nice, flying has always been a tricky thing for our deck to deal with since the early days of the format. Having a reach creature with flash gives us a solid answer to that ability once and for all. Note, Endurance can hit your graveyard against the odd mill deck. It should also be noted that endurance offers a solid two for one against most yard value style mirror matched creatures, it knocks Darcy out of the air and blocks to KO it in one swift motion.
