Jungle Jam
The letter C!onstructed by Magic Online tournament winner Markus Pettersson, the "Jungle Jam" deck lets you truly unleash your animal instincts. This aggressive deck can accumulate an unstoppable Griffin air force, aided by an array of angry animals on the ground. Bare your claws, growl, and attack!
Spend the first few turns of the game developing your mana. It's crucial that you get to the point where you can produce four mana as soon as possible. Thanks to the deck's numerous copies of Rampant Growth and Quirion Elves, though, that might be as early as turn three. Then it's time to start building your flock.
The "Jungle Jam" deck's main offensive thrust comes in the form of its nine Griffins. Eight of them are very similar: Each is a 2/2 creature with flying that costs 3 ManaWhite Mana and has some other ability. Generally, that other ability isn't as important as simply being able to fly over your opponent's defenses to deal damage. Multiple 2-damage hits add up quickly, and if the legendary Zuberi, Golden Feather is around to rally your feathered troops, each Griffin strikes for 3 damage instead. If something goes wrong with this plan, however, Teremko Griffin's banding ability can help outmaneuver a flying blocker or, if left back to defend, can often ward off enemy attacks. Even better, Mtenda Griffin's ability allows you to recoup any fallen Griffins.
The rest of this deck's creatures can either slow down your opponent's counterattack on the ground, or they can support the Griffin attack to keep your opponent reeling. Sawback Manticore is especially good at leaving your opponent without any good combat choices either way, since its ability threatens to take out an opposing attacker or blocker before it can deal combat damage. Keep in mind that although the Manticore must be involved in combat to use its damage ability, the creature it shoots down can be blocking or blocked by something else -- or unblocked entirely.
Although there's only one Mountain in the entire deck, Quirion Elves, Rampant Growth, and fetch lands like Grasslands and
Mountain Valley
make it easy to produce red mana for the Manticore when you need it. If you already have the Mountain and a Plains in play, your best bet is to fetch Forests to make
Foratog
as threatening as possible.
After playing with the deck for a bit, you can take it in a few different directions. To get more defensive on the ground while still unleashing your Griffins as quickly as possible, try the Mirage set's
Wall of Roots
. If you'd like to expand the Griffin theme, the Eighth Edition set's
Diving Griffin
provides a three-mana-cost addition to your flock, while the Onslaught set's
Shared Triumph
shares Zuberi's ability to give each of your Griffins +1/+1. To follow the "zoo" theme of rampaging animals, the Invasion set's
Jade Leech
and the Ninth Edition set's
Emperor Crocodile
are among the many choices available to you.
