"Jund Politics? Did I hear that right?"
I am known as one of the most dangerous players in my meta. It is not because my decks are particularly good. Ironically, I would be less of a threat if my decks were stronger. No, I am dangerous because I am slightly less threatening than the guy next to me. That's the beauty of this arrangement: you can even be aware that it's happening, but you're still going to spend your Anguished Unmaking on his Ulamog and leave my board alone.
So the question isn't really "why Jund politics?"—it's "given Jund, how do we make it political?" The key component of our strategy is the insight that the power of a card isn't just what's written on it, but also the ways it causes our opponents to react. Outside of a complete lockdown combo that will make you the priority target in the next game, your opponents will always have lines of play. An insecure deck seeks to eliminate those lines of play. We do not. We simply redirect them to our opponents. Not only will our opponents die thinking they made the best choices available to them, they will be correct to think so.
This deck is heavily inspired by the philosophy of Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control, although obviously it's not in keeping with an aikido ethic. Call it more of a judo deck: we use the opponent's momentum against them, and sometimes this breaks their neck.
Triumph out of Chaos: Our Strategy
The above section describes the deck's philosophy, but the strategy requires some more attention. In this deck, we are forcing our opponents to attack with everything they can't find some excuse to tap. What does that functionally mean for us?
First, the most crucial decision of every turn is where those creatures are going. We use a variety of methods to push them towards our opponents.
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Deterrents. This includes soft deterrents like Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs and Slumbering Dragon that create value for us should creatures come our way. Thantis, the Warweaver itself falls into that category. We also have access to hard deterrents like Dread and any of our deathtouch creatures that promise lost value if the opponent aggresses us. Given our relatively large creatures, Repercussion deserves particular mention in this category.
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Incentives. Cards like Curse of Opulence encourage players to attack other people without direct interference from us. Monarch (from Marchesa's Decree) and Coveted Jewel both induce players to attack their controllers; these should be deployed and immediately passed off to someone else, ideally by way of a relatively painless bargain. This brings us to our final method...
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Negotiation. The least involved form of negotiation requires no resource expenditure, e.g. convincing one opponent that another opponent needs to be taken down can divert an entire combat step without spending a single card. However, words work best when backed by action. Key to the City or Rogue's Passage allow us to offer safe passage to an important creature. Hunted Troll or Hunted Dragon allow us to offer creatures. We might also threaten to "gift" them with Xantcha, Sleeper Agent or flash in Dictate of the Twin Gods while someone's attacking them, but be warned that making threats is a quick way to become the Archenemy.
Second, because everything is attacking all the time, there will be few blockers (anything with vigilance and/or summoning sickness) defending a given player. Each player should expect to do damage and to take damage. Our deck accounts for this by mostly running large creatures, on the assumption they'll be likely to win a given matchup. It also means that our lethal threat range only needs to extend to about 20 life.
Attaining Correct Posture
Thantis comes down turn 6, and will die immediately if anyone has removal and wants to hang back. Consequently, it is important to spend the pre-Thantis period of the game positioning yourself carefully in the political environment.
We will want to do our ramping early, but not so much that the deck looks explosive. (Prefer Swamps if possible, for reasons that will emerge later.) From there we will want to resolve one or more of the cards mentioned in the Strategy section. Xantcha, Sleeper Agent or Marchesa's Decree are excellent cards for this purpose because they create a precedent for players attacking often, while Hornet Nest and Slumbering Dragon get people used to not attacking us.
A key concept for the deck in general, but particularly in this phase of the game, is that of "political capital." Political actions like negotiation may not require cards, but they do spend or accrue political capital. Gain political capital by preventing misfortune from befalling another player, or by spending removal on the table's behalf. You will lose capital when you decide against a player, but you can mitigate this with politeness. "Sorry man, nothing personal, I'm just going with the higher bid." It is remarkable how easily you can get someone angry at one of your opponents for a kill spell you yourself cast. That anger will be useful later when you cast Thantis.
Set yourself up to have decent card draw, open mana, and removal in hand. Make mutually beneficial deals. Ignore the temptation to make one-sided deals, as the opponent will refuse them and you will lose political capital for your trouble. Then cast Thantis and let the slaughter begin.
The Garden of Forking Paths
There exist an extensive collection of decks and an equal number of personalities that play them. I cannot tell you how to navigate the chaos arising from forcing a grab bag of them into constant melee—that is your path to walk. This section covers the tools available to you as you do. Everything said in the Strategy section profitably applies here as well.
If the incentives and disincentives already present don't prevent an opponent from aggressing you, let your open mana speak for you. The Scorpion God can turn trades into a victory plus card advantage, while Strands of Night can bring in surprise blockers at the expense of a land. (Ancient Stone Idol needs no such introduction.)
Other cards worthy of consideration:
- Mirage Mirror is your Swiss army knife.
- Bow of Nylea disincentivizes your opponents from blocking while offering a useful toolkit.
- Springleaf Drum lets you keep key creatures out of combat.
- Evil Eye of Urborg keeps the rest of your field back as blockers while smashing everything in its way.
But remember: the most important tools are those employed by your opponents on your behalf.
Victory
This deck wins through damage, absent some improvised combo with something we stole using Mirage Mirror. That damage is usually combat damage, but we have numerous exceptions. We're primarily hoping to see our opponents ground down through Thantis-induced turmoil in order to get them in range of one of our finishers:
- For those investing in larger finisher creatures, Backlash, Delirium, and Phthisis (hope you ramped a lot of swamps) should handle them nicely.
- Should our own creatures grow large, Flesh / Blood can take out whoever we want.
- Rush of Blood doubles the effectiveness of both preceding win conditions as well as being able to turn a late game combat step unexpectedly lethal.
- Rakdos Charm can fatally punish swarm decks. In a pinch, it's 8+ damage with Dictate of the Twin Gods and Hunted Troll. This use case is, of course, top-grade jank.
We have a lot of single-target finishers because we're aiming to survive into the final two players and then murder the other guy. But it never hurts to be prepared, so we also have two table-wide finishers:
- Blasphemous Act + Repercussion
can take someone straight from 40 to 0 if they have 4 creatures and can happen as early as turn 4 (although where they got 4 creatures on turn 4 is another question).
- EDH is a format with greedy landbases. Price of Progress frowns explosively on that greed.
Lastly, we have two more involved win conditions that use combos:
