Tarmogoyf is overrated.
Okay, maybe it’s rated correctly, but it might not be necessary. What if you had a similarly powerful two-drop, better mana, and an absurdly powerful hate card, but you lost Tarmogoyf? Would that be so bad? Honestly, I’d be more concerned with losing Abrupt Decay, but even that’s replaceable.
Instead, you get a great manabase, access to Prophetic Flamespeaker, and Blood Moons out of the sideboard. What’s not to love? Relic of Progenitus allows your Lightning Bolts to handle Tarmogoyfs while doubling as hate against Storm and Snapcaster Mage.
Pack Rat is quietly popping up in Modern here and there, and it might just end up being an awesome card in the format. I think the biggest thing you lose is Tectonic Edge, but you really want Mutavaults to power up your Pack Rats, so that’s a reasonable tradeoff. You could even play Slaughter Games in the sideboard if you were truly worried about decks like Tron and Scapeshift.
I experimented with Jund packing Prophetic Flamespeaker, and while Flamespeaker was great, I felt like the deck’s manabase was stretched for no reason. I cut the red and haven’t looked back since, but perhaps I cut the wrong color.
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (25)
Spells (17)
