I appreciate it greatly man the list looks awesome i may try it at FNM i will let you know how it goes it looks awesome though

XxTrunks81xX81 No problem! Keep in mind the version I came up with hasn't been tested, but I think it's still a solid list. Good luck :)

it did decent tonight placing 3rd at fnm without any real problems besides that one guy playing bant CoCo

Glad to hear it, hope ya got some prizes! Did you play Jund or R/G?

Jund Budget but picked up pieces to star switching over to The actaul list

I played against a seasons control deck and thought about trying Jund Seasons Control.what do you think?

this is the first list for it http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/jund-seasons-control-2/

I believe this deck should decide whether or not its a midrange or a control deck, because while its in limbo its not functioning to its full potential in either of these areas, to the slaughter is mediocre against most decks, I would keep it in the sideboard. but Black White control destroys this deck almost 100% of the time in un sideboarded games. its a good idea for decks to play either a bunch of creatures or no creatures in this format, this is somewhere in between. I really like the concept. if going for more midrange, add creatures and lose the removal that kills your own stuff (languish, kozilek's return) also pia and kiran seem out of place, or if going control add read the bones and ob nixilis.

Hi luckyasian, thanks for your comment! I believe this is a midrange-control deck that fits the playstyle of Jund. We'll have to agree to disagree in short, but I'll explain some of the choices I made and maybe it'll help show why I built it this way.

Overall, this list is built like modern Jund: dismantle the opponent's gameplan through hand disruption and removal, while maintaining a strong creaturebase. That way it can exist between creature-aggro and control, just like a midrange deck.

If you look back to Khans of Tarkir standard, this is also build a lot like Abzan control, which ran Fleecemane Lion and Siege Rhino and sometimes Wingmate Roc, but also End Hostilities, Drown in Sorrow, Abzan Charm and Hero's Downfall. It's solidly an archetype of controlly midrange that's been around for a long time.

The idea is to be faster than a control deck but outlast an aggro deck. The original version of this didn't have Kalitas or Languish in the mainboard, but through a lot of testing against the very, very aggressive white weenie archetypes, I learned it's necessary. Just because it sometimes kills my own creatures doesn't mean I'm not coming out on top whenever I play a sweeper against a more creature-heavy deck.

Instead, all of the creatures are built to make the deck faster than regular control. If you look at G/B, B/W, Esper control, they all pretty much win with planeswalker ults or manlands. That's slow, gives the opponent lots of draw steps. This deck can control the boardstate, removing planeswalkers and creatures, but then can quickly establish a threat and put pressure on the opponent. Sylvan Advocate is either an early blocker or a lategame beater; Pia and Kiran Nalaar are evasion and removal all in one; Tireless Tracker is our creature card advantage; Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet stops graveyard strategies, gains life, makes tokens.

The planeswalkers work the same way. Chandra, Flamecaller is both a boardwipe and a HUGE 6 damage threat. Arlinn Kord  ^Flip makes a body to block and can bolt to remove threats, or she can buff some Sylvan Advocates or Kalitas tokens and start ending the game.

The key is versatility in every card. The sweepers in the main are there because otherwise hyper aggressive matchups like G/W humans are a game 1 loss. I don't know if you've tested it, but against Esper Creatureless control, my game 1s with this deck have been reasonable. I explain the choice to mb against aggro over control in the primer.

To the Slaughter underperforms against aggro creature decks, but against midrange and control it's very effective. Since I pack so many sweepers for the aggro matchup, I needed to give the deck some more mainboard outs against control game 1. If you look at G/B, Esper, B/W control they've begun running that over Ruinous Path (though this deck still needs Path to go overhead to Gideon, Ally of Zendikar).

I am keeping an eye on Ob Nixilis Reignited, but currently I don't have room and every time I see him played against me I'm not impressed. If I find I don't need a certain spell anymore I'm not opposed to adding a copy. Read the Bones, though, hasn't been necessary. It was in the original build but removed in favor of Tireless Tracker, who generates more value over time and provides good pressure or trades up into bigger creatures.

Sorry for the long reply; I find the creature control deck a fun and interesting archetype. Thanks for looking. :)

I feel you, the abzan control decks didnt play fleecemane because it was too agressive, the midrange/ aggro decks did, though. I understand where youre coming from, but tireless tracker doesnt even live to get you more than one most of the time. I made a deck based off of your build here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/jund-midrange-control-4/

oh, I tried my best to fix the mana in that deck, and I dont know about most matchups but it performs extremely well against black white control.

luckyasian I'm glad you liked the deck enough to make your own. In testing, I can promise you, Tireless Tracker worked well enough for me not to need to waste spell slots on Read the Bones; I have tested deck versions with both. I made the decision to cut Read the Bones like a month ago because I was always using it to dig for something useful and it was always a waste of a turn at 3 mana. Even if Tireless Tracker eats a kill spell after making a clue, she replaces herself and that's one less kill spell that my opponent has.

In that worst-case scenario, RtB would have gotten me one more card, a little more selection, 2 damage to my face, and they'd still have a Ruinous Path for that Chandra or the Kalitas that I found with it.

I tested away 2x of the Goblin Dark-Dwellers and Kolaghan's Command as well; my original list was running 4x and 2x respectively but I found that getting a creature back was never likely until after turn 6 because I wasn't looking to play them early, making Command a Shock that never killed anything and a discard for 3 CMC. Similarly GDD would show up in my hand too early and make for some costly mulligans, just to be drawn t3 again instead of removal that I needed.

I think these cards are fine against a control meta. That's a more resilient deck at the cost of less pressure throughout the game and less early ways to deal with aggro. I built this deck to have a gameplan for every single match, and so far it's done that, happy to say.

If B/W control is the deck to beat in your area, good luck and good draws, hope your version works for you!

Love this deck. +1.

Thinking about building. Only concern is what happens in a couple months when Origins rotates off standard. Have you started to ponder that at all?

johnstonn: Well, that doesn't happen until September so I'm not immediately concerned, mostly because summer gives me the most FNM trips of any time of year and I'll get the most value out of this deck than any other time haha.

The biggest rotation will be Languish with Origins. It's the best sweeper in standard by far because it deals with Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip, so hopefully there will be a good replacement for that. Something like Bile Blight would be preferable over the common -2/-2 sweepers like Flaying Tendrils, or over something like a 5 CMC boardwipe like Crux of Fate.

I can tell you more about what the deck's options are when Eldrich Moon comes out because that set should have hints about what kind of replacements for common card archetypes that are rotating out (like Fiery Impulse or Languish or Clash of Wills) we can look forward to.

In short, Languish, Ultimate Price, and Pia and Kiran Nalaar will probably be replaced with more specific removal, or, if available, another low-cost sweeper.

I'm assuming Duress will be reprinted so that it stays in standard, or we will get some other kind of 1 mana hand disruption-- wizards seems fine with the power level of that in standard. Display of Dominance will be sad when it rotates, but it SHOULD be replaced by some better planeswalker removal than Ruinous Path. I think Wizards sees, in this walker-heavy format, that it's a mistake to print such expensive and slow planeswalker removal.

Happily, the really expensive cards in this deck, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Chandra, Flamecaller won't rotate for awhile, and we don't lose most of our creature base. And most importantly, we don't lose the manabase to support 3 colors either.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet also happens to be a modern Jund/Grixis all-star now, so he's not a bad investment. :)

Hope that helps! If you have any more questions, let me know.

I feel that the deck is currently a little light on green mana. Additionally, you only have three sources of green mana that can enter untapped before turn three. I also noticed that your red cards are generally higher on the curve than your green ones. As such, I recommend switching out at least some of your Cinder Glades for Game Trails. Also, just increasing your green land count in general would probably help. You run two playsets of early green creatures, and those creatures got consistently stranded in hand while I was testing.

In my testing I noticed that this deck runs out of gas really quickly. Tireless Tracker is great at generating advantage and certainly becomes a formidable threat in the mid/late game if left unchecked. However he dies very early on in the piece to the cheap removal that's seeing a lot of play in standard at the moment (e.g. - fiery impulse/grasp of darkness). I've found running a 2/2 split of Read the Bones and Painful Truths works pretty well (for me at least) in this deck and gives it the go forward that it really needs mdi game. Besides that, this deck is epic fun to play and pretty competitive to boot. +1 :)

TheBindingDarkness: Thanks for your comment and +1! Glad you like the deck. I agree that TT's weakness is against cheap removal because she's an X/2; but I haven't faced a single deck so far running any Fiery Impulse or even Grasp of Darkness even though I know they were popular first choices when people where starting to build decks. I've singularly faced Anguished Unmaking, Ruinous Path, Languish (<-- Esper Control) and Declaration in Stone (G/W Tokens) as removal spells in my matchups. Because of this I like her a lot more than draw spells for reasons I've defended before!

I do think that, if you face a local meta with a lot of cheap removal, it's right to take her out. But against non-red control and G/W tokens I like her ability to swing in and profitably block in addition to her more grindy card advantage.

ppledger: Thanks for your comment. The green mana is something I've been oscillating on recently. You should take into account that the Sylvan Advocates and Tireless Trackers aren't meant to come down early except possibly against control, and only then if I don't have hand disruption for the first few turns. (Advocate is best as a 2-mana 4/5 and Tracker is best when I can start cracking the clues as soon as she comes down-- aka not T3 or T4.) That's why the Cinder Glades have been testing well so far, and why I don't find myself wishing I had Game Trails instead.

On the other hand I do think there needs to be one more Forest or a Hissing Quagmire and I'm thinking about taking out a Mountain for it. In testing with Battlelands I really like to have ~13 basics so they only come in tapped T1 or 2 at worst and that ratio has been testing really well for me. I just want a higher chance of having all 3 colors in my opening hand, because every game where green has been a problem color for me has been when I only have R/B sources in hand and only R/B cards, then draw into green cards with no green source.

My instinct is to go for a 3rd Hissing Quagmire because it's a great beater and I really like to have black sources early, but a 4th Forest will help the untapped mana and keep the ratio of Battle to basics intact... so I have to do more testing.

So I ran this deck as listed twice. Once went 3-2 and finished 9th in a tournament of about 25. Then went 1-3 in a tournament of about 9 or so. Some of the problems I ran into were quite interesting. For example, frequently, even with 26 lands, I was running into mana crisis. This could just be the Magic Gods giving me a week off from positive karma. Another problem I frequently saw, was that I was getting out sweeper'd early and with a ton of small creatures and tokens, I was constantly keeping things like Languish in my hand because I need my creatures/tokens on the board. Frequently in games I I lost I was able to drag them out a long time just because of silly tokens on the board that could be constantly sacrificed (typical Bant, Esper, and to a lesser extent Naya problems). What I found out about this deck is that I had my best success when I was super aggressive with my hand disruption spells, aggressive with creatures early to the mid-range, and made good use of specific removal.

I've made some changes and in play testing they have gone splendidly. I'll let you all know how FNM goes tomorrow.

Changes list:

• Mainboard:
• +1 Evolving Wilds
• +1 Foreboding Ruins
• -1 Mountain
• -1 Smoldering Marsh
• -1 Swamp
• -2 To The Slaughter
• -2 Ultimate Price
• +2 Grasp of Darkness
• -2 Languish
• +3 Deathcap Cultivator

• +2 Mina and Denn, Wildborn

• Sideboard:

• • -1 Dark Petition
• • -2 Display of Dominance
• • -1 Duress
• • -1 Goblin-Dark Dwellers
• • +1 Grasp of Darkness
• • +2 To The Slaughter
• • +2 Ultimate Price

Those changes are what I go into the game with. Then based on how the first game goes, Mina and Denn/Deathcap are the go to changes out for whatever I need from the sideboard. These changes let me be fast and aggressive while also having enough control to deal with problems. Just thoughts. I'd love to hear your input.

johnstonn Thanks for the breakdown and letting me know about your testing! I'm surprised at the mana problems, at least that it sounds like you're getting no lands; in testing I've had maybe 1 out of 10 games will get screwed off a color, but typically I haven't had issues getting to 5 mana at the least. I'd say I get flooded more than anything! But it may be worthwhile to test 27.

I'm surprised to see Mina and Denn! They were in an earlier build because of the good synergy with Tireless Tracker but they never felt like they impacted the board enough. And why M&D over something like Thunderbreak Regent as an aggressive 4 drop? Please let me know how they go in testing and why you decided that they fit the gameplan, I love playing with the card.

Also, did you put in Deathcap Cultivator to alleviate some of the mana issues or did you feel you wanted to hit 4 mana earlier for something?

I wouldn't be opposed to running a more aggressive list and I like the creatures you've put in. However, I REALLY feel like G/W tokens is the deck to beat if you're trying to make a very competitive deck, simply because it's the ubiquitous deck at every Open and PTQ and it's proven solid as a rock. That's why I run so many sweepers in this version; it's essentially built as a G/W killer with a broad range of options for a non-G/W matchup (since hand disruption is so universally useful and the creatures are good).

The gameplan in mind for this list is to use hand disruption aggressively, like you said, then control the board until you can drop some cheap and effective creatures or a game finishing Planeswalker-- the creatures aren't meant to be aggressive unless it happens to fit the matchup. In my own experiences with the deck I've been able to play this gameplan well. It's really difficult to tell what the most optimized list should be because the deck plays differently in everyone's hands and card choices vary by local meta.

I appreciate the thought you put into the deck and look forward to hearing about your updated results!

The Deathcaps are there to help feed my aggressiveness. Getting things onto the board quicker and giving me more options for putting out creatures while still having mana left for removal/hand disruption.

I certainly agree that there are more options at 4 drops. My current thought is, as you said, some neat synergy with Tireless. That becomes a huge card advantage/makes tireless a monster. Plus, the extra land is just an out to be more aggressive. I'm not sure I'd ever run something like Thunderbreak because its perk never really would become useful aside from the fact that flying is always nice (granted doing some playing around and working Atarka in here with Thunderbreak could be interesting...).

I agree on the tokens for keeping Languish. I could 100% see a world where I kick out my to the slaughters to put it back in and still have that edge on tokens.

I'll make sure to let you know how tonight goes.

One other quick thought, I can also see a world where I work a couple of Olivia's in here instead of Mina and Denn to see if I can get some play off of Kalitas.

Tonight was not a good night for this deck. Bant CoCo and Blue/Red Flash are just not good opponents for this deck.

johnstonn: Sorry to hear about FNM! Not sure what U/R flash entails but I know CoCo is annoying. How did Mina and Denn go? Did you miss Languish in the 75 or did it feel smoother without?

Also, Olivia was in a more aggressive version of this list. She's absolutely stellar but I think running her would necessitate a much larger creature base. I'm working on a brew that is more aggressive, mostly hand disruption and creatures, for local metas where G/W tokens aren't a problem (or if you just like to play that kind of deck better).

Mina and Denn basically ended up being nonfactors. By the time I was up to four drops I found I was looking for things other than the ability to play an extra land (specifically Arlinn). That said, Deathcap was a boss in this deck. U/R flash is basically a ton of creatures with flash (most of which have flying). They flash them in at the end of my turn. No summoning sickness to start their turn. Then here come a ton of low level flyers. This is particularly bad for a deck like ours where we are basically forced to be blowing our whole mana bank on each of our turns. In terms of languish, I didn't really miss it at all. If anything, I'm considering just going straight for main boarding 4 Grasp and 3 ruinous path. They were working like a dream.

I agree with you that going aggressive with this deck is the best option. Hand disruption, early creatures you can ramp (Sylvan is a superhero here).

The real problem is that I'm not sure short of everything running perfectly we have a good answer for Bant CoCo. Specifically, if you don't have good hand disruption to start the game Reflector Mage is a monster. In fact, if it wasn't for everything good in Bant CoCo being Tarkir or Origins I would probably consider putting it together for the soul purpose of messing with people off of Reflector. That card has been nasty to me both of my last two times out.

Thanks for the rundown! I'll be clear, I honestly enjoy running my own controlly version over a more aggressive version, and I've had a lot of good results with the current decklist!

But I'm totally interested in building the aggressive version because I think it could be a lot of fun and successful too, so I'd be happy to brainstorm and work with you on that. :)

As for reflector Mage, I agree it's just about the most annoying card in the format--my friend plays it in Brago, King Eternal to be an asshole-- did you side in Infinite Obliteration? It might seem like overkill but that deck really hinges on Mage for tempo and to push through damage, they can stall out otherwise.