Thanks for the love TheGreatSlob! This deck has a budget of approx. $250. I was noticing the light removal package today. It’s typical of Full blown Jund to have more removal and disruption than creatures. This build however is more aggressive and relies on creature synergies more than the usual variants. I do agree though that there is room for more removal. I would start by cutting a Bloodhall Ooze or 2 for either Thoughtseize, Duress or Abrupt Decay.

Hey, forgot to ask; What matchups do you slide in Huntmaster of the Fells  ^Flip into? She's (I got the FTV foil) my favorite card but I've never gotten to use her. Can you help?

It’s pretty good against aggro, burn and the mirror match. It’s a value, lifegain, extra blocker kind of card.

Me, the casual player, laughing very loudly:

Budget?

notice: this is not meant to in any way alienate the competitive community, if you gots money, might as well use it- I would play competitive too if I had the $$!

Hey ZendikariWol I understand your point. This is most likely not a deck for the casual player.

"Budget" is a relative term here with regards to Modern. Having a deck in Modern (especially a Jund or any 3 color deck outside of RDW, no offense Goblin Guide fans) that DOESN'T cost as much as a month's rent is difficult to compile and be competitive. This deck is "budget" in the sense that it is still competitive in Modern and is only 25-30% of the average competitive deck price.

~$250 is VERY budget for a competitive viable Modern Jund deck. The archetype normally costs well into a couple thousand dollars for an optimal list, so the fact that Chasmolinker developed a viable deck for about a tenth of the normal price is astounding. The price this deck is estimated at is considerably budget to boot for players who want to play the archetype without having to pay half a year's worth of rent for pieces of cardboard. Being able to budget the cost down to where it is now is honestly a feat in and of itself.

Not trying to flame at all here. I just get triggered when people make questionable comments about how the term "budget" is used in MtG. To understand how the owner of this list is using the term, you have to understand the context of the deck and the archetype it is based on. The owner intends this list to still be competitive viable, and budgeting down the list to sub-$50 would severely gimp the deck to be not even remotely similar to what it is and how it plays.

I've listed one of my $90 decks before as budget and players actually attacked my claim that it was budget because my perspective was that something below $100 was undoubtedly budget (for a Commander deck especially), yet other people were expecting budget to mean it was between $10-20, but that price range is HYPER-budget in my opinion. Perspective is a huge thing to factor in with that respect. I don't believe that the owner of this list labeling it as budget is incorrect simply based on the context built around it and from my personal experience with playing the game for the better half of a decade. I can see why a casual player wouldn't view this deck as budget, but I don't think this deck is really meant for the casual player. It's a competitive list budgeted down to be friendly and more accessible to build than an optimized list filled with stuff like Tarmogoyf , Liliana of the Veil , and Dark Confidant normally would be.

EDIT: The owner of the list responded five minutes before I did, and I never had a chance to see their comment before I posted. It's wild how many parallels are in each of our comments haha.

Thanks for the love DiverDown
I'll be stopping by to check out those sub $100 decks you mentioned. I am so off the fence on Commander, but I do envy the fact that people get so much fun out of the format. It just doesn't do anything for me. But, that doesn't mean I wouldn't want a budget EDH deck in my bag for the next time my "Modern Pod" jumps ship halfway through the night and starts rolling out their EDH decks.

Budget decks in Modern cover everything from 11.7% OF THE TIME, IT WORKS EVERY TIME. to BorosBurn (with skewer the critics). I can't tell you how many discussions I've seen where somebody "Wants to get into Modern without spending a fortune" and the first response is Burn. It's the cheapest competitive Tier 1 deck in Modern at $500 and is considered "Budget" by many.

Chasmolinker No problem haha. I used to play Merfolk competitively in Modern for a number of years, but I since retired the deck and deconstructed it because my playgroup at college exclusively plays Commander. I've transitioned to EDH entirely and I would highly recommend the format to anyone.

As far as my sub-$100 decks I mentioned, I've archived most of them because my deck pages were getting too cluttered and out of hand. At this point too, my playgroup has adopted more competitive lines and my collection has become so extensive that I play on higher budgets now. If you'd like to be introduced to the format though, feel free to add me and enable chat. I'd be glad to help you decide on a commander and make suggestions based on your budget preference. :)

Thanks! I'll pm you some Commanders I'm looking at.

I knew what you meant by budget, Chasmolinker. A decent modern deck costs 500-2k$. I'm familiar with what not being casual is, I'm understand the modern meta and price tag, I just choose to reject that in favor of the play style I prefer.

And it's just that- the play style I prefer. Just me. I have a lot of friends who are super competitive. They consider it a fun challenge. I consider it an unnecessary deck building restriction. Are either of us totally right? No. Because both our arguments have some truth to them. In the end, we prioritize the joy that we get out of the game. For me, that's a game of commander with no combos and no stax! And for them, it's a game of pauper where they have tron out, a Stonehorn Dignitary , a Mnemonic Wall , and Ghostly Flicker in the graveyard.

TL;DR I understand and see the appeal in competitive, especially competitive modern. It's a nice cup of tea, but it's not my favorite. My comment was meant to poke fun and not to actually offend or criticize.

No offense taken ZendikariWol. I too enjoy the fun and lack of the "cookie cutter" aspect of building a casual deck. I just made a deck the other day that has no competitive edge, Mono Black Rat Race. I do try to stick to Modern, but only because I [currently] don't play EDH and my interest in pauper is borderline. (That Tron scenario sounds like a format/fun killer to me). I've dabbled in both but not to the extent that I have in Modern or even Standard. I like my investments to be rewarding and long lasting.

I actually primarily enjoy casual modern and commander. My most delightfully flavorful modern deck is a jund combo of Bloodrush and Varolz, the Scar-Striped . I play a lot of sort of semi-budget commander decks. My more competitve commander brews (still pretty casual but they can do a surprising amount of damage) usually go around 300$.

Varolz, the Scar-Striped is a pet card of mine. I have both a Jund and BUG build around him. Bloodrush sounds like an interesting way to fill the yard.

i like Skinshifter as a budget alternative to Tarmogoyf

Trust me PlatinumOne. Once you see how many counters Bloodhall Ooze and Managorger Hydra get you’ll understand the choice over Skinshifter . A T3 5/5 Bloodhall Ooze is one of my favorite ways to win a game.

i wasn't necessarily saying to use Skinshifter in place of the Bloodhall Ooze or Managorger Hydra .

When you see "budget" "jund" and "$$$$" all in the same deck. Jund in a nutshell. I guess bloodbraid being introduced made it easier, $250 is pretty good for jund.

That card that made me want to build budget jund was Bloodhall Ooze , but I gave up because it was too hard. I admire your work. +1

Have you considered Dreadbore or Bedevil for more flexibility? (although assassin's trophy is probably better than the second) Also why not a playset of bolts?

Hey zapyourtumor. Hope you found some starting points in this build to get back at it. Dreadbore was almost a thing when they unbanned Jace, the Mind Sculptor but that never really stuck. Bedevil is interesting. I haven’t given it a spin yet. I kinda like Maelstrom Pulse in that slot since it’s less mana straining. Instant speed might be something to think about though.

PlatinumOne: My mistake.

“Budget” by Modern standards is all I’m referring to. But I know what you mean. The deck still has the Jund flavor and can actually get up and running a lot quicker sometimes.

This deck looks fun. I really like how you changed the whole background on the website for your deck. I'm easily impressed, haha. Not sure how you did that. I'd like to play this deck (or something similar) some time.

Thanks for the support keinsteinkenten! I used a style sheet. (See the bottom of my [[Primer]] - Jund Midrange and be careful) There is also an easy way to do it if you're not up to it yet by using this code at the beginning of your deck description:

<img src="http://i.imgur.com/q3pIX.gif" style="position:fixed;top:0px;left:0px;width:100%;height:auto;z-index:-1;" a/>

Followed by a style sheet such as this one to make all the boxes transparent:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://dl.dropbox.com/s/fqxpobte7n2g7wh/TappedOutProfileCustom.css?dl=0" a/>

Hope that helps.

And yes. I played this deck for the first time at my LGS and had an absolute blast. Aether Hub got some funny looks as did almost every other card in the deck. Even got Bloodhall Ooze up to 13/13. It was so refreshing to play this deck against the current meta. Of course it struggles against Burn like most slow decks do. But the potential to swing for big damage with Bloodhall Ooze drew the attention of plenty of bolts .

this really looks terrific and im also impressed with the pricetag +1

Thanks Icbrgr!

Have you considered Gonti's Machinations? Its actually a little more efficient than a lightning helix in terms of raw damage.

Hey! I'm in a $100 USD playgroup and I've been trying to adapt your list for my meta. I really appreciate the insane amount of work you put into this, and I'd appreciate your insights into how to make my version more competitive (keep in mind I'm playing exclusively against other $100 decks). Anyway, let me know what you think. DECKLIST