I got a phone call on Tuesday, May 4th from my buddy Steve McKenna, asking if I wanted to grab lunch and hang out. I had recently moved back to Minnesota after being gone for about five years, so some amount of catching up was definitely in order at some point, but I had plans already. We decided to tentatively do something Friday. He called me early on Friday to see if I was still busy, and then drove up to Minneapolis to meet me.
At the restaurant, we had the following conversation:
Steve: I wasn’t sure if I wanted you to be busy or not.
Me: Huh? Why’s that?
Steve: Well, if you were busy, I would have just went to Lincoln.
Me: Uh oh… What’s in Lincoln…?
Steve: A PTQ. Why?
Me: Uh oh…
After a few minutes of wondering whether I should be looking for an excuse to not go, I decided that I should probably go and battle. It would be decent practice for Grand Prix: DC at the very least, but I didn’t know what I wanted to play yet. Jund and UW were both options, but those are boring. San Juan and Block Constructed weren’t really on my mind at all, so I had nothing to focus on except for Standard, so I should be able to come up with something better than the two most obvious decks.
Moments later I was on the phone with my friend Bill Boysen, asking if he had a spare deck for me. “Always,” he said. He also invited Steve and me down to his place where we could catch some sleep before driving the remaining 45 minutes to the PTQ site.
A quick stop at my place to get a change of clothes (and my StarCityGames.com shirt, obviously) and some other assorted items, and we were on the road. It was just like being 17 again.
Steve is a lifelong Rock player and he even managed to convert me back in the day, which was good enough for me to win a couple PTQs. Obviously he was playing Jund, but would I? Playing Jund when it was the best deck would have been a nightmare. Endless awful mirror matches with seemingly no way to break it would be the definition of a miserable experience.
However, that was no longer the case. Jund was on the decline and everyone was playing crap like Polymorph, which should be easy enough to prey on. Almost immediately I decided that I wanted to be the bad guy. It kinda seems like everyone out there is signing this “I won’t play Jund” pact, but that kinda thing isn’t for me. If Jund is by far the best deck, and is made even better because no one is playing decks that are even remotely as good, then I’m more than willing to stoop to that level to get some W’s.
So I had a rough idea of what I wanted to play, but there are still a lot of options. I didn’t know if I wanted to get too cutesy like Wrapter’s Plated Geopede Jund deck, or keep it plain and simple. Another issue I had was that I wasn’t quite sure how, um, civilized the great Magicians in Nebraska were. It had been quite some time since I had PTQed in that region, but I remember back in the day, there were a lot of Nebraskans who didn’t like playing “established” decks.
Also, the Planeswalker deck was relatively new, and I didn’t know how up to speed the players would be. In addition, it was a very expensive deck. Between those two reasons, I wasn’t sure exactly how many Planeswalker decks there would be.
Now, there have been a lot of times my friends will go to overseas GPs and say stuff like, “The Japanese only play Faeries and Zoo,” and then cram their DDT deck with four Thopter Foundries. Then they lose to non Faeries decks or Zoo decks that are prepared for that piece of the combo and wonder where they went wrong. I’m often the first to tell them to just prepare for a normal metagame. It’s so incredibly difficult to figure out exactly how much of each deck will played at the next tournament that I just don’t even try anymore. I’ll recognize trends and adapt accordingly, but drastically shifting the entire strategy of your deck because you “heard” Billy’s playgroup really like Vampires isn’t going to work out well.
Anyway, I should take my own advice. Planeswalkers was everywhere.
Here is what I played:
Creatures (17)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (27)
Spells (14)
Based on Crosby’s and my limited testing of Jund, we determined that Garruk was actually pretty good. It kinda gets a bad rap for being bad in the mirror, but I really don’t think that’s the case. Still, I wasn’t 100% on Garruk or Sarkhan, so I played one of each. Sarkhan seemed like a cheaper Broodmate Dragon, which would basically prove itself to be true.
I was never really upset with Bituminous Blast, and kind of surprised that people had stopped playing with it. During the StarCityGames.com Atlanta Open, I was really disappointed to see my Wall of Omens get Blasted, and I hope I could recreate that same feeling for my opponents in the PTQ.
The fourth Pulse was because, eventually, I talked myself into believing that people would be playing real decks, and I was right. Still, I didn’t have all the hate that I think I need to survive in this Planeswalker filled world. Duress and Goblin Ruinblaster were my attempts at defeating UW Control, and although I knew that Duress was subpar against UW Tap Out (and certainly worse than Inquisition of Kozilek, which is also good in the mirror), I knew that there would be some Polymorph decks and Planeswalker decks that Inquisition just isn’t good against.
The Traces in the sideboard were for the mirror and against decks with Spreading Seas. I don’t really like the whole idea of Rampant Growth or Explore, and I certainly don’t like how it messes up your cascades. Sometimes you just need some LD protection. If I could do it all over again, I would have ran them maindeck, despite my previous objections, or just run a 28th land.
I truly felt like the bad guy the entire day. I would get eye rolls nearly every time I cast a Bloodbraid Elf, and audible sighs when I cascaded into the right card. Blightning was so much fun to cast. Trust me, if you enjoy this type of thing, play Jund. You won’t be disappointed.
My tournament started good. I was 3-0 or 4-0 before I had to play against Brandon Scheel, whose name I assume most of you recognize. He was playing Planeswalkers, and despite me crushing him game 1, he went on to the win the match, despite not sideboarding in anything backbreaking. I feel that was mostly because I was forced to Spread ‘Em a lot more in the post board games, but also because my sideboard was lacking. I really needed Pithing Needle, Malakir Bloodwitch, or Mold Shambler. If I had any of those, I think our match would have gone differently.
Still, I managed to win out to make Top 8 after not being able to draw in. Thankfully, the only other person I rode with, Steve, was able to ID his last round. After some quick math, I told him that we’d probably be playing in the quarterfinals though, and we agreed to a tiny split.
I won game 1 on the back of Sarkhan, but then got a game loss after we got deck checked. It seems that I wrote four Forests, three Swamps on my deck reg sheet, which is what I wanted to play, when I had four Swamps, three Forests in my deck. Oops. To top it off, Steve Blightninged me after I mulliganed on the play, and I was left with a tough decision.
I had four lands, and three cards, which were Garruk, Sarkhan, and Siege-Gang. I could play Garruk and untap some lands to protect it from another Blightning, I could play Garruk and make a token and get utterly wrecked by a second Blightning, or I could play nothing and try to save a five drop from getting Blightninged. With my position, and Steve having a fistful of cards, I decided that Blightning was going to wreck me if he had it, and if he didn’t have it, playing Garruk and making a beast gave me the best chance to win.
He untapped, drew, and went deep in the tank. Then he went deeper, and I figured he didn’t have Blightning. I even said out loud that I was sure he didn’t have it at that point, since if he did have it, it would be literally the best possible time to cast Blightning in the history of Magic. He thought for a bit longer, and then announced Blightning.
Grr. He went to mark my life from 17 to 14 and I smiled. He quickly crossed out 14 and pointed at Garruk.
Then I peeled Blightning.
Then I peeled Ruinblaster.
Then I peeled a Bloodbraid.
Then Steve died, unable to cast the Siege-Gang he was holding.
I don’t feel good about my win, but I’ll take it. Naturally, we decided that whoever won our match had to win the PTQ.
Except I messed that up by losing next round to Brandon again. Again, I won game 1, but he beat me the next two games. Granted, those games contained a mulligan, some misplays on my part, tight play at most times on his part, and some mistakes from me in game 3, but still.
By then, I had played against the Planeswalker deck a few times and noticed that the games came down to straight grinds. They couldn’t really do anything that would put them way over the top except for maybe Martial Coup, but I still had answers to that in Maelstrom Pulse and maybe Siege-Gang. I noticed the games I won against Brandon I still had a bunch of gas in the tank while he was very few cards in hand.
Clearly the matchup was about attrition, and without either of us having any real way to draw cards, I decided to draw first in our game. It worked perfectly, but then I messed up a few times, and he stopped drawing lands after number six. Let me tell you something, the third Gideon is difficult to deal without Bloodwitch or Pithing Needle.
Steve and I each walked away with a box and a half, and overall had a pretty good time.
We still had a rather long drive ahead of us, so I had plenty of time to think. Mostly about how old I am, and now I now considered our five-hour drive “long,” and how back in the day I wouldn’t bat an eye at an eight-hour drive to a PTQ, or a twelve-hour drive to a GP, but I just can’t do that anymore.
After that depressing realization set in, I figured how I wanted to fix my Jund deck. The mirror was strictly about attrition, and so was the Planeswalker matchup, so how do I fix that? How can I make Jund get more card advantage?
Then I figured it out: Add Wild Nacatl.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. If I wanted to Jund again, I would look at doing something crazy like this:
Creatures (16)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (27)
Spells (13)
With the lack of pure aggressive decks, Lightning Bolt is becoming more and more unnecessary. Trace is to speed up the deck a bit since I added some four- and five-drops and cut the one-drops, but to also protect your manlands from removal, and to make sure you can actually cast your spells.
I know this list is incredibly insane looking and also untested, but I’ll be honest, I do most of my testing based on theory nowadays.
Anyway, the day before Regionals, I sent this to some of my friends:
My current list, which I am crushing everything with on MTGO:
Creatures (32)
- 1 Birds of Paradise
- 3 Ranger of Eos
- 3 Wild Nacatl
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 4 Bloodbraid Elf
- 2 Lotus Cobra
- 1 Scute Mob
- 4 Cunning Sparkmage
- 2 Stoneforge Mystic
- 4 Vengevine
Lands (26)
Spells (2)
Sideboard
I’ve tried Rings main instead of Sparkmage, more Cobras, Consuming Vapors instead of Vapor Snare, etc.
With Ranger, Bloodbraid, and Vengevine, all I want to do is draw lands. You will have enough gas, so the only issue I had was choking on mana.
I like the Sparkmages maindeck, especially if people are playing Wrapter Jund. Bant is a real deck and probably not a great matchup, so those certainly help. If you think UWr is going to be more popular, maybe Rings and the second Sledge should be maindeck. Having nearly all dudes to cascade into for Vengevine is pretty tight though.
The sideboard splash isn’t necessary, but I would like to be able to beat Bant and UW Tap Out’s Baneslayers. They are castable off Spreading Seas, and even let you rebuy your Spread manlands, so overall, they seem solid.
This deck plays the attrition deck supremely well, with a bevy of four-drops that gain you card advantage. Sparkmage/Collar is back to being a tier 1 plan against some decks, and by playing the combo instead of pure removal spells you get to almost always hit a creature with Bloodbraid so that your Vengevines are incredibly live.
Overall, it posted solid results, qualifying Brian David-Marshal, JT Henricks, and Gavin Verhey, although I’m sure I’m forgetting someone else. John Penick and Steven Birklid lost their win-and-ins, while Nick Becvar and Sherwin Pu missed Top 8 on tiebreakers. Then, the next day, Bobby Graves won the Indy PTQ with the deck, Becvar made Top 8, and Justin Brown (remember the name!) lost playing for Top 8.
After a solid night of MTGO, I’ve played against the mirror a few times already, so ya’ll should be ready for this deck.
I’m fully aware I didn’t do anything spectacular to the old Boss Naya deck; I just cut the crap. Wild Nacatl is borderline garbage half the time (and I‘m down to two in my current list), and is only in the deck to get extra bodies to attach to a Sledge. I added some land and cut the Tectonic Edge.
Am I playing Naya in DC? As of right now, I have no idea, but it’s my frontrunner. I wouldn’t dare play Planeswalkers or Jund, assuming that people are going to be playing Naya now.
PROPS
Bill Boysen: For having the biggest… um… card collection I’ve ever seen.
Brandon Ayers: For winning the Lincoln PTQ!
My homeboys who I’ll be seeing at Nationals!
SLOPS
Me: For being a week behind in Jund technology at the PTQ.
See you in DC!
GerryT