Today, I’m going to present the Jund side of the Jund versus Mythic matchup.
As for the decklist Antoine is testing, the choice was pretty clear. When two players make it to a Grand Prix Top 4 with the exact same decklist, it can be considered a reference deck, so I was not really surprised to find out Antoine was running Tamas Nagy and Zoltan Szoke’s version.
Creatures (30)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 3 Rafiq of the Many
- 4 Rhox War Monk
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 2 Thornling
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 4 Baneslayer Angel
- 4 Lotus Cobra
- 1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
Lands (27)
Spells (3)
Sideboard
As far as I am concerned, I will be playing the same list we’ve been running in Antoine’s cross columns for a few weeks: Grand Prix: Brussels Champion Emmanuele Giusti’s list.
Creatures (18)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (27)
Spells (13)
Sideboard
Therefore, today will be a rematch of Grand Prix: Brussels finals, which Jund won 2-0. Game 1 should probably be tough, as he has many more threats than I have answers. Also, as I can’t afford to waste my few removal spells (except for Lighting Bolt) on his mana accelerators, he should also have a big tempo advantage.
Preboard Games: 7-17 (29.17% wins)
I didn’t expect the matchup to be good in the main, but I surely didn’t think it would be this bad. In order to win in Constructed, it is necessary to have a game plan, and it is pretty hard to have one here, mostly because you are in a big disadvantage as far as tempo is concerned. Your plan should be to kill all of his threats, and to eventually play your own for the win. But once again, this can’t really work, as you only have 2 Terminates and 3 Maelstrom Pulse in the main, as well as 4 Lightning Bolt (which often can’t kill Knight of the Reliquary), while they have about twice as many guys that you must kill. Also, you almost can’t deal with Sphinx of Jwar Isle (which enters the battlefield earlier than Broodmate Dragon) or Thornling. Therefore, your game plan will be based on their bad draws: they don’t find many threats, so you kill the ones they do, then play Broodmate Dragon and win.
Not only is this matchup quite bad before sideboard, it’s also really hard to play. While Jund is usually able to answer threats one by one and can be played without much thinking, it is pretty hard here, as there is nothing so difficult in this matchup as choosing whether an opponent’s guy should live or die.
The first question is to know whether you should play your removal spell at instant speed or during your turn, when you’re guaranteed they won’t have Negate or Bant Charm. Even though I was pretty sure Antoine wasn’t running any of these in the main, I still played my first removal spell as a sorcery speed to make things more realistic. On the following turn, I was not so kindly reminded that Bant does play Finest Hour and Rafiq, meaning it can be pretty much as bad to play a removal during your own turn as not playing one at all. Every removal spell which doesn’t target Knight of the Reliquary, Birds of Paradise, or Noble Hierarch must, therefore, be played at instant speed.
Then there’s the matter of Rhox War Monk. The card is annoying, and doesn’t die to Lightning Bolt. Still, you have to try and keep yourself from killing it. Indeed, you can’t afford to waste Terminate or Pulse on it when Mythic has much bigger threats. The life gain from the rhino is not so dramatic, as you’re not so much into racing anyway, so you should wait until you can either double block it or simply block and Lightning Bolt it. Still concerning the 3/4, it may seem like Putrid Leech is a good answer to it at first, but they have so many exalted cards that it is more often a 4/5 than a 3/4.
Also, still concerning Putrid Leech: most of the time you won’t pump the 2/2 in order to try and race, as they hit faster than you do. Leech or not, racing is not something you should go for if the end of the game isn’t close. You almost only want to hit for four when, in the early game, you open with turn 2 Leech on the play and they don’t play a mana accelerator on turn 1.
When they open with Birds or Hierarch and you have Lightning Bolt in hand, whether you play your burn spell or not will usually depend on the land they played on turn 1. If it’s a fetchland, then it’s likely a turn 2 Knight of the Reliquary would already be out of the Red burn’s reach. If, on the other hand, they cast their Green guy using a Forest, Bolt will be enough for the Knight, so you can leave the 0/1 safe.
Blighting is quite a strange card in the matchup. It’s both necessary as it is one of your only ways to deal with his biggest threats (if not the only way, such as with Thornling and Sphinx of Jwar Isle), but it’s also a spell with no immediate effect on the board, which is very punishing when you already suffer a tempo deficit. There are two scenarios when you must play the card, almost no matter how unpleasant the situation on the board may be: when they have two cards in hand (obviously), and when they have only three or four mana. They will then usually keep a five mana guy, and they may not do anything relevant in the next turn.
It’s interesting to see I did “better” on the draw (5-7) than on the play (2-10). The difference shouldn’t have been that big, but it illustrates once again one of Jund’s strengths: Blightning makes going second a lot easier.
Postboard Impressions
I feel like things should go a lot better, as I eventually have many more removal spells, which are pretty cheap and should get me both the tempo back and many ways to deal with his threats. Here’s my sideboard plan:
+4 Deathmark
+2 Jund Charm
+1 Terminate
-4 Putrid Leech
-1 Sprouting Thrinax
-1 Siege-Gang Commander
-1 Garruk Wildspeaker
Thrinax was pretty good against Rafiq of the Many and Finest Hour, but I suspect Antoine will take out the 3/3 and I want Bloodbraid Elf to become a key card after board. In order to achieve that, it’s necessary to drastically reduce the number of early guys. This is also the reason why I decided not to bring in Goblin Ruinblaster. The card seems a good answer to the sometimes annoying Celestial Colonnade, but it’s still pretty expensive and I don’t want to flip it on Bloodbraid Elf.
Both Garruk and Siege-Gang are often off tempo, but they are also both strengthened by the incoming removal spells, so I’ll keep a few of each.
I think the matchup should be slightly in my favor after board.
Postboard Games: 10-16 (38.46% wins)
I could hardly be more wrong. Yes, the matchup is better. Yes, indeed, the tempo is less of a problem. Also, I still think I should have done a little better (maybe 11-15 or 12-14). But still, the matchup is pretty bad. By making it slower, I reinforced the impact of the later drops: Broodmate Dragon, but also Thornling and Sphinx of Jwar Isle. Those three cards, which had been pretty discrete over the first 24 games, where now clearly our win conditions. But still, he simply had more threats than I had answers far too often, and I could do nothing but die. I was positive on the play (7-6) but got bashed on the draw (3-10), which shows Blightning’s impact decreased as I didn’t need the card as much.
Even though you now have more removal, you will usually leave the early guys to Lightning Bolt. The only reason to shoot them with anything else is if you have many removal options left (at least two, and if possible three) when they cast their Birds. After all, dismissing their mana leaves you with a little more time to find removal spells which can compensate for the first spell you’ve played.
Jund Charm is mostly used to kill all the Green fragile guys, but keep in mind it can also remove the opponent’s graveyard, giving you the possibility of dealing with an active Knight of the Reliquary. The technique will simply be to leave them be until they decide their guy doesn’t need a shield anymore, so you can block and make it a 2/2.
As they should be sideboarding the Control Magic spells, it is good to keep a Lightning Bolt in order to shoot your own Thrinax in response to the aura.
When you have the advantage on the board, don’t rush and play Bloodbraid Elf. The card will reveal a removal spell two-thirds of the time (14/21), and a removal which can kill any of their guys about 50% (10/21) of the time. It is better to hold the cascade guy for as long as you can.
Options To Improve The Matchup
With 29% wins in the main and 39% post board, the matchup is clearly bad, maybe Jund’s worst. To make this clear, these are not numbers you can reverse by adding three or four cards to the deck.
Still, the matchup could go from very bad to slightly negative by adding Bituminous Blast and Master of the Wild Hunt. As both cards are pretty bad against many matchups, they probably won’t take too much space in your 75 cards, but if you intend to fight head on against Mythic, 2 or 3 Bituminous Blast in the main deck and the same count of Masters in the sideboard should make it something like 35% main deck and 50% post board, making the whole match up a lot more winnable.
Thanks for reading, and have all a great weekend! Good luck at the StarCityGames.com Atlanta Open!
Oli