Jund but I'm too poor to play fair, AKA 12goyf

Modern Aggro BRG (Jund) Budget Midrange

Kazekazu

Land (20)

• 2x Blackcleave Cliffs
• 2x Blood Crypt
• 4x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Forest
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 2x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 4x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Creature (16)

• 3x Bedlam Reveler
• 2x Flamewake Phoenix
• 4x Grim Flayer
• 4x Hollow One
• 2x Street Wraith
• 1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang

Instant (8)

• 2x Incubation / Incongruity
• 2x Kolaghan's Command
• 3x Lightning Bolt
• 1x Tarfire

Sorcery (16)

• 4x Burning Inquiry
• 4x Faithless Looting
• 3x Inquisition of Kozilek
• 2x Thoughtseize
• 3x Traverse the Ulvenwald

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Sideboard

Instant (6)

• 1x Ancient Grudge
• 2x Destructive Revelry
• 3x Surgical Extraction

Enchantment (2)

• 2x Choke

Creature (2)

• 1x Fulminator Mage
• 1x Phyrexian Revoker

Artifact (2)

• 2x Nihil Spellbomb

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Anger of the Gods
• 2x Thoughtseize

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Maybeboard

Instant (4)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Golgari Charm
• 1x Risk Factor

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Seal of Primordium

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Though Tappedout says ~$900, I still think the deck is budget if you cut down the manabase and sideboard. See budgeting section for justification and budget substitutes to make the deck even cheaper.

Game Plan

This deck's goal is to pump out as many goyf-type of cards as fast as possible, supported by a combination of burn and proactive discard. You want to be more fast than conventional GBx, putting on a clock earlier, like an extreme version of Jund or Abzan traverse decks. This deck is not focused on attrition with cards like Dark Confidant , Liliana of the Veil , or Tireless Tracker , which generate steady card advantage or pseudo card advantage. You really do not want to be taking things slowly.

This means it can play defensively against decks that would play a bunch of smaller creatures with larger creatures and efficient removal while also being able to play more aggressively against slower decks by disrupting their hand and quickly threatening lethal damage.

Additionally, card selection through Burning Inquiry , Grim Flayer , Faithless Looting , Traverse the Ulvenwald , and Bedlam Reveler help to dig for sideboard hate or anti-hate while streamlining draw consistency.

Deck is still very much in the works. Death's Shadow , Vexing Devil and card:Claim/Fame are things to look at

Budgeting

The deck is budget in the sense that most of the maindeck is relatively cheap for modern; basically all the costs are concentrated around the manabase, which can be tuned for personal budget

• Manabase on a budget: Check Lands, Shadow Over Innistrad's Reveal Lands, Fast Lands, Pain Lands, or Filter Lands. Just make sure they enter untapped.

• Thoughtseize / Inquisition of Kozilek can be substituted with some combination of Despise , Duress , or Inquisition of Kozilek s

• Kolaghan's Command is a flex-slot card. It's there because the deck needed more instants and Kolaghan's Command is one the best. It may be too slow.

• Risk Factor is a flex-slot card. I put it in because I wanted something that could synergize with Grim Flayer the way Lingering Souls does in Traverse. It can be replaced with pretty much anything, but preferably an instant, since the deck is a bit low in its instant spell count.

• Lightning Bolt can be replaced by Tarfire or Seal of Fire , which help enable Delirium with Enchantment/Tribal card types. Probably should buy those bolts, though, they're in every red deck.

• Grim Flayer can be replaced by Putrid Leech , Greenwheel Liberator . Tasigur, the Golden Fang , Boneyard Wurm , and Hooting Mandrills generally are difficult to play on turn 2 unless you add some Dredge engine. Skinshifter sounds really good, but the 1 green mana is really taxing. Scavenging Ooze is slower, but better than Skinshifter. It is still mana-intensive. Keep in mind that you're losing out on card filtering.

• Bedlam Reveler can be replaced by another one of the budget goyfs listed with Grim Flayer above. Losing Bedlam Reveler means you lose out on a lot of the deck's gas, so you might need to compensate that loss. This deck might be proactive enough for Light Up the Stage , for instance. On the plus side, you don't need to worry so much about the instant/sorc to creature ratio, and can be more greedy with the number of goyfs you run. This means that, while you draw less cards with Reveler and lose out on the Hollow One synergy, you can topdeck more goyfs.

• Street Wraith could be replaced with more goyfs, a lightning-boltish card, cheap card advantage...the purpose of Street Wraith is to be an "empty deck slot" that makes the deck 58 cards while also fueling Hollow One and Grim Flayer . Don't replace it with a 1 mana cycler; replace it with another cheap, aggressive "goodstuff" card.

As with all decks, sideboard should be customized based on the meta you are up against, rather than copy+pasted from anywhere.

It might not be the cheapest budget deck, but at least it's midrange-esque in playstyle. The deck consists almost entirely of staples that can slot into other meta decks: RB Hollow One, Abzan Traverse, or Mardu Pyromancer, mostly

Card Choices

Goyf? Show

It should be in here, but I'm too pobrecito to affordacito it, even though it's fallen to a $200 playset card

No 6th 1 CMC discard? Show

The 4 copies of Burning Inquiry are the substitute for the 6th discard spell. It's less consistent than Thoughtseize or Inquisition but it also somewhat filters through cards and enables Hollow One.

20 one drops Show

Looking into how much the deck should be built around dealing with Chalice on 1. Even if some of the 1 drops are cut (most likely Traverse the Ulvenwald or some burn spells, the deck is going to be relatively 1 drop Heavy.

20 lands Show

There will occasionally be mana problems, but they can be circumvented somewhat by digging for lands early with Traverse the Ulvenwald , Faithless Looting , Burning Inquiry and Street Wraith . The deck has an effectively low mana curve as well.

Why Risk Factor ? Show

Since the deck is more proactive, risk factor is more likely to become its draw 3 mode than in Jund. It fills an instant slot, it can be a discard source, and it's easily ditchable with Discard Spells or Grim Flayer.

It's largely experimental, and I'm leaning more towards it being cut. I've personally never been a huge fan of Browbeat style cards, and it's 3 mana, which is, nowadays, "slow" for Modern, especially for proactive decks. A lot of times, it can sit in your hand doing nothing early game. It's similar to how Lingering Souls can clog hands or make opening hands worse in Abzan Traverse, except 3 mana sorcery for 2 1/1 flying tokens is, in my opinion, a better effect than instant speed Browbeat

Too Graveyard Dependent? Show

Yeah. All the "goyf" style cards except Hollow One depend on the graveyard to cheat them into play or to make them bigger. But hey, if dredge and RB Hollow One can fight through graveyard hate, this deck can too. Not sure what the best anti-graveyard hate card is in these colors or what ratio they should be run in; needs more testing

Advantages of the Deck

Compared to GBx, you trade consistent attrition for more explosive pressure. The deck trades out slower value cards like Bloodbraid Elf , Siege Rhino , Liliana of the Veil and Dark Confidant for basically more goyfs that generate a bit of value. The focus of the goodstuff cards is their proactive pressure, rather than utility and board control. I think the deck is closer to a RB Hollow One midrange splashing green than GBx or Mardu Pyromancer.

This is true in regards to removal spells as well. Rather than waiting for the opponent to play things to destroy a la Fatal Push and AssTrophy, the removal spells in the deck all have the option to be used proactively for pressure or discarded to fill the graveyard if they aren't useful at a particular moment in time.

Compared to RB Hollow One, the deck should be less explosive but more consistent, so games aren't as boom and bust as Hollow One.

Disadvantages of the Deck

The deck is really graveyard dependent, probably as much as Dredge or RB Hollow One. The deck shouldn't auto-fold to graveyard hate, however. Ideally, you should be able to filter for counter-graveyard hate with Lootings, Burning Inquiries, and Flayers. I would like to reduce how dependent the deck is on the graveyard; maybe Flamewake Phoenix , Risk Factor and Traverse the Ulvenwald could be replaced?

All the deck's removal is burn, which means you lose out on the ability to deal with larger creatures and non-creature permanents game 1 like GBx.

The deck also lacks the lategame power or topdeck capabilities of GBx. This is substituted by the ability of this deck to be more aggressive (but less so than Hollow One) and to filter out some of the worser draws with Flashback Lootings/Risk Factors and Grim Flayer. Still, come "lategame", a Siege Rhino or Bloodbraid Elf are better topdecks than 5 mana topdecked Hollow One .

Lastly, the deck is tri-colored, which means you lose out on the utility lands of GBx and have a more painful manabase.

Deck History: Why Fair GBx Control Is Hard to Budgetize (Irrelevant to Deck)

I always wanted to play GBx midrange, but it was always out of budget. The deck is a lot more affordable in 2018 than it was in the past, but, still, it's one of the most expensive decks in the format. I wanted to play the deck on a budget. The problem is, GBx is a goodstuff deck; if you can't afford the goodstuff, you can't play the deck. The options were to change gameplans (like this deck) or to create a really janky imitation of GBx that would probably be worse than even streamlined budget decks.

I wanted to play fair magic, rather than depending on the broken synergies and interactions Modern is known for, but many of the key "floodgates" that forced you to play fair magic in GBx (Liliana, Goyf, and Dark Confidant), were too pricey.

I tried to make a fair budget GBx deck, but couldn't do it. The cards were either individually too weak or relied on synergies that couldn't consistently be drawn or setup.

So, I went full degenerate and gave up on a control playstyle and focusing on being a very aggressive midrange deck. And that's how this jank pile came to be.

Games

Games are best 2 out of 3 on Untap.in

vs Jeskai Control, 2-1

Game 1, Play Show

Mull to 6 into a hand with 2 Burning Inquiries and a Street Wraith. Don't loot into anything and effectively lock myself out of the game in card disadvantage. Turn 3 Hollow One gets Pathed while I only have 2 cards in hand and I scoop

Game 2, Play Show

Turn 1: Burning Inquiry into Hollow One
Turn 2: Traverse for Tasigur and play it. Opponent plays Search for Azcanta on their turn
Turn 3: Thoughtseize opponent, revealing a hand of 6 lands and 1 Lyra Dawnbringer
Turn 4: Win

Game 3, Draw Show

Turn 1: Burning Inquiry into Hollow One, again.
Turn 2: Play a Delirious Grim Flayer. Opponent endstep cycles Hieroglyphic Illumination and, on their turn, uses Detention Sphere on Grim Flayer.
Turn 3: Traverse the Ulvenwald for a second Grim Flayer and play Tasigur.
Turn 4: Opponent chump blocks Tasigur with Snapcaster Mage and Lightning Helixes it to death. I play an undelirious Grim Flayer. On their turn, opponent taps out for Teferi and Tucks Hollow One away.
Turn 5: I finish off Teferi with Grim Flayer and Burning Inquiry to replay Hollow One. With a choke in hand, I figured I should play a grindy game rather than get myself caught by a topdecked boardwipe. Opponent plays a second Teferi and retucks Hollow One.
Turn 6: I finish off 2nd Teferi with Grim Flayer and play Choke, and opponent fetches for an untapped Hallowed Fountain. I flashback Looting and play a land to recast Hollow One a third time.
Turn 7: Opponent Scoops.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Exclude colors	WU
Splash colors	G
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 32 - 8 Rares 10 - 5 Uncommons 9 - 2 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.70
Tokens	Frog Lizard 3/3 G