3 Abzan and only 1 Jund in top 32 - perhaps abzan is better than jund now? Lingering Souls and Voice of Resurgence (the top 8 abzan deck) looks pretty nice against those grixis decks.
3 Abzan and only 1 Jund in top 32 - perhaps abzan is better than jund now? Lingering Souls and Voice of Resurgence (the top 8 abzan deck) looks pretty nice against those grixis decks.
I also discuss the success of Grixis and UW Control, and the relative failings of Burn and the unfair decks like Amulet Bloom and Grishoalbrand.
On the Abzan point, I think it's a bit too early to know for sure. On the one hand, there are strong theoretical reasons to support Abzan's resurgence. With the format tending towards fairer decks with big-bodied creatures, Abzan's Lingering Souls and Path to Exiles start to look a lot more attractive than Jund's Bolts. K-Command is still strong, but Souls might become stronger if you are always facing boards full of Anglers and Tasigurs. On the other hand, Jund is still going strong outside of the SCG Charlotte scene, and we can't forget that it was Jund which took down the whole event. Maybe we are seeing a shift back to Abzan, but we need more data to know if it's a real shift or just a temporary one.
A rather simplified explanation. Where as both Jund and Grixis are good against linear (especially aggro) decks, due to the access to Bolt, Terminate and co, both Esper Midrange (without Mentor) and Junk are good against a more midrange meta due to Souls and Path (which are great against those big creatures). Lingering Souls is a pain in the ass against all decks, which have no access to Electrolyze and/or Trampling creatures. Since both Jund and Grixis (depends on the version) don't/can't run those cards, they have a bad match-up against Junk/Esper. Since there were only a few linear decks day 2, it is no wonder for me, that Junk did better than Jund.
Greetings,
Kathal
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I gave you a thank you for this, but do you know how to find the Day 2 as well? (I hate to ask this here, but my search resulted in nothing found.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
3 Abzan and only 1 Jund in top 32 - perhaps abzan is better than jund now? Lingering Souls and Voice of Resurgence (the top 8 abzan deck) looks pretty nice against those grixis decks.
"Also, Lantern Control. Give me more Lantern Control please."
Again making waves in Charlotte, lol. Ali AIntrazi has 2 articles on it on tcgplayer, one pre-SCG Charlotte and one post post-SCG Charlotte.
I also know of 2 recent PPTQs that were won with Lantern, one by Zac Elsik himself, and one by another fellow member of ours by the name imRauSch. Lantern honors its play style by slowly but surely crawling its way into the top tiers, lol.
There is no Twin in the top 8. Something is supposed to be wrong
I'm surprised by it too but I like it.
I don't find it that surprising to be honest. Twin has lost a bit of its luster and ground and there are definitely people who swapped over to Grixis Control. I prefer that deck over any Twin deck but of course that is personal bias. The thing is people who have that bias too but wanted to play a Snap-Bolt-Cryptic deck simply had no other choice but to play Twin but now they don't have to do that anymore.
You're right about that. It is so more true for Grixis Twin as it's essentially a worse version of Grixis Control and most people switched to control instead like they did a while ago with Delver. It's also worth to mention that Grixis Control has better game against Jund than any Twin variant.
I don't think it's essentially a worse version of Grixis Control. Grixis Control has a better matchup against Jund and other Twin decks, but Twin has a better matchup against pretty much every other deck. Having the combo makes matchups like Burn, Amulet Bloom, and Tron a lot more favorable. Not to mention Elves and Affinity which I've found to be tougher for Grixis Control than for Twin. Right now Control is better positioned, but if we see a resurgence of faster unfair decks then Twin will be back at the forefront.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Modern decks BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
I think Jund is still stronger deck overall. If metagame becomes GBx and Grixis infested then I can see Abzan getting back its spot but as long as there aren't too much of those decks Jund is better choice imo. I wouldn't play Abzan over Jund right now unless my meta would suddenly become obligated by Grixis and BGx decks.
Also, more Jund decks made Day 2 than Abzan ones and like Kenshin said Jund won whole thing which is the fact you can't overlook.
5 junk decks and 8 jund decks making day 2 in a time when a vast majority plays junk over junk looks pretty good for junk. And the jund-players generally had poorer results day 2.
In terms of watching replays, they're not there yet, but they should be putting up videos on their Youtube channel soon. These are a bit more convenient because you can immediately find the applicable rounds rather than having to manually find it on the recorded stream.
I think Jund is still stronger deck overall. If metagame becomes GBx and Grixis infested then I can see Abzan getting back its spot but as long as there aren't too much of those decks Jund is better choice imo. I wouldn't play Abzan over Jund right now unless my meta would suddenly become obligated by Grixis and BGx decks.
Also, more Jund decks made Day 2 than Abzan ones and like Kenshin said Jund won whole thing which is the fact you can't overlook.
5 junk decks and 8 jund decks making day 2 in a time when a vast majority plays junk over junk looks pretty good for junk. And the jund-players generally had poorer results day 2.
Thta's true but like I said I would still rather play Jund than Junk right now unless my meta becomes filled with Grixis and GBx decks. Against those two Junk is better deck but against almost everything else Jund is better.
I've never played either, but isn't Junk better against Twin as well due to Paths?
I think Jund is still stronger deck overall. If metagame becomes GBx and Grixis infested then I can see Abzan getting back its spot but as long as there aren't too much of those decks Jund is better choice imo. I wouldn't play Abzan over Jund right now unless my meta would suddenly become obligated by Grixis and BGx decks.
Also, more Jund decks made Day 2 than Abzan ones and like Kenshin said Jund won whole thing which is the fact you can't overlook.
5 junk decks and 8 jund decks making day 2 in a time when a vast majority plays junk over junk looks pretty good for junk. And the jund-players generally had poorer results day 2.
In all fairness, between myself and talking to another guy on Jund, we got absolutely slammed by 'gotcha' moments. Day 1 my first loss came against a Living Twin deck that saw 5 creatures hit the yard by turn 2, untap Living End on 3, followed by a game 2 Exarch to Twin exactly on 4 (which, at the request of a few of my friends, I put the judges on notice about that match, because that was the third time I had seen that player kill perfectly on time. One of my friends was actually on the deck, he and I both knew that's more consistency than that deck is capable of).
Day 2, the only guy on Grishoalbrand stomped in game 2. At 16 life, I offered an end-step bolt on turn 4. He tapped out, exiled a Simian Spirit Guide, Breached Griselbrand, drew 28 cards and killed me. In his end step. Because I offered a bolt. Plus the aforementioned Naya Burn deck on 4 Mutagenic Growths. A few other tales from other Jund players were similar stories of 'oops, I win' moments.
That said, if I had it to do over again, yes, I'd probably play Abzan. I sided out Lightning Bolts in so many matches I was wondering why I had them. Bob bled me so bad in so many games that I was forced to lean on Scavenging Ooze way harder than I should have to (I even mainboarded Huntmaster to offset the deck's willingness to kill its pilot...no regrets there, tho, he was an all-star all weekend). It's just that Path to Exile is so much more relevant now, Lingering Souls wreaks havoc on Grixis, and Siege Rhino is just plain gross. Plus, it'd be nice to pilot a deck where Tasigur is more relevant (I hate him in Jund...like, a lot. I cut him completely, in favor of Huntmasters).
I don't think you can discount Jund won the whole dang thing, even if Herrara's list was weird. But, and this a big but...Herrara came to the PPTQ at my store a few weeks ago with almost that exact same list and didn't even top 8. The deck is very feast or famine. One of the guys on Grixis Control on Day 2 said something I felt was really relevant to the current metagame with Jund. He said 'Jund was the deck of spectacular 2-for-1's until they banned Bloodbraid. K-Command makes sure that Grixis has that title now.' He's absolutely right. Jund can play 40% of the same cards as Grixis, and Grixis still plays them better, because of Snapcaster and the tiny bit of countermagic.
I have felt this way too, and even mentioned to my fellow LGS players that my opinion was that Jund was the best deck. But I feel that I should mention something. Today I did a lot of testing with Jund Pre-Board (Herrera's list). I did around 20 games pre-board vs. Merfolk and the matchup seemed terrible. Cards like Spreading Seas and Kira, Glass Spinner were tough to beat and Silvergill Adept was the all-star that it usually is against most decks. I think it was close to 14 games out of 20 for Merfolk. Then I tested against RUG Shoal Delver and it was close to 50%. This is a matchup in which Jund is supposed to be highly favored. I also tested against Grishoalbrand and it seemed that my experience was pretty spot on, as Grishoalbrand won around 60-70% of the time. I also did Affinity and that seemed like a tough matchup as well, but it was close to 50% in 20 pre-board games.
Now I haven't played Jund myself in quite a while and I noticed that there were different paths that I could have taken, especially against Merfolk. It really was much tougher than I had originally thought that it was and I probably definitely didn't play it as well as I played the other decks. That being said, these matchups really seemed tougher than I had expected.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I have felt this way too, and even mentioned to my fellow LGS players that my opinion was that Jund was the best deck. But I feel that I should mention something. Today I did a lot of testing with Jund Pre-Board (Herrera's list). I did around 20 games pre-board vs. Merfolk and the matchup seemed terrible. Cards like Spreading Seas and Kira, Glass Spinner were tough to beat and Silvergill Adept was the all-star that it usually is against most decks. I think it was close to 14 games out of 20 for Merfolk. Then I tested against RUG Shoal Delver and it was close to 50%. This is a matchup in which Jund is supposed to be highly favored. I also tested against Grishoalbrand and it seemed that my experience was pretty spot on, as Grishoalbrand won around 60-70% of the time. I also did Affinity and that seemed like a tough matchup as well, but it was close to 50% in 20 pre-board games.
Now I haven't played Jund myself in quite a while and I noticed that there were different paths that I could have taken, especially against Merfolk. It really was much tougher than I had originally thought that it was and I probably definitely didn't play it as well as I played the other decks. That being said, these matchups really seemed tougher than I had expected.
I don't fear the Merfolk mu in the slightest. I also run 2 SB Choke, so that might explain the better performance g2/3. Actually, I think I had 2 Merfolk matches this weekend, and I distinctly remember the game on Day 2 was a blowout. Lili/Chandra was active in game 1, and Choke/Lili in g2, it was just absolutely horrible on my opponent. K-Command getting 2-for-1 value on Aether Vial and a lord is gross, and I don't think I dropped a goyf smaller than 4/5 because of it. The early hand attacks really cut them deep, too. This isn't a blue deck that draws much, so it's easy to capitalize.
I think Jund is very strong, don't get me wrong. 'Best deck' is too bold a statement, I think. There's a lot of combo that is too dependent on having the right card at the right time, whether it's hand disruption, decay, terminate, or sideboard hate. Couple that with how diverse the meta is right now, i'd be amazed if any deck could be called a 'best deck' by any metric. Right now, you can basically say a tier 1 deck is one that only got 1 or 2 terrible matchups and even money on the rest of them. Jund definitely fits that qualification, but so do a LOT of other decks right now. I mean, Lantern Control just popped up, there wasn't even a thread for Naya Company on here for weeks despite taking 2 opens over the last few weeks, and now we have proof that a U/W control deck can go the distance, so that's somewhat uncharted territory.
It's an amazing time to be a modern fan, that's all I'm saying.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
I talked about this possibility in my SCG Charlotte retrospective article for today:
http://modernnexus.com/scg-charlotte-modern-open-hits-and-misses/
I also discuss the success of Grixis and UW Control, and the relative failings of Burn and the unfair decks like Amulet Bloom and Grishoalbrand.
On the Abzan point, I think it's a bit too early to know for sure. On the one hand, there are strong theoretical reasons to support Abzan's resurgence. With the format tending towards fairer decks with big-bodied creatures, Abzan's Lingering Souls and Path to Exiles start to look a lot more attractive than Jund's Bolts. K-Command is still strong, but Souls might become stronger if you are always facing boards full of Anglers and Tasigurs. On the other hand, Jund is still going strong outside of the SCG Charlotte scene, and we can't forget that it was Jund which took down the whole event. Maybe we are seeing a shift back to Abzan, but we need more data to know if it's a real shift or just a temporary one.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I gave you a thank you for this, but do you know how to find the Day 2 as well? (I hate to ask this here, but my search resulted in nothing found.)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Try this: http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/v/12370810?t=3h25m42s
It jumps you to 3:25 (Lantern vs Burn match), just go back to the start of it.
"Also, Lantern Control. Give me more Lantern Control please."
Again making waves in Charlotte, lol. Ali AIntrazi has 2 articles on it on tcgplayer, one pre-SCG Charlotte and one post post-SCG Charlotte.
I also know of 2 recent PPTQs that were won with Lantern, one by Zac Elsik himself, and one by another fellow member of ours by the name imRauSch. Lantern honors its play style by slowly but surely crawling its way into the top tiers, lol.
"When you get your opponent down to 0 sanity, you win the game!"
I don't think it's essentially a worse version of Grixis Control. Grixis Control has a better matchup against Jund and other Twin decks, but Twin has a better matchup against pretty much every other deck. Having the combo makes matchups like Burn, Amulet Bloom, and Tron a lot more favorable. Not to mention Elves and Affinity which I've found to be tougher for Grixis Control than for Twin. Right now Control is better positioned, but if we see a resurgence of faster unfair decks then Twin will be back at the forefront.
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
5 junk decks and 8 jund decks making day 2 in a time when a vast majority plays junk over junk looks pretty good for junk. And the jund-players generally had poorer results day 2.
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
I've never played either, but isn't Junk better against Twin as well due to Paths?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
In all fairness, between myself and talking to another guy on Jund, we got absolutely slammed by 'gotcha' moments. Day 1 my first loss came against a Living Twin deck that saw 5 creatures hit the yard by turn 2, untap Living End on 3, followed by a game 2 Exarch to Twin exactly on 4 (which, at the request of a few of my friends, I put the judges on notice about that match, because that was the third time I had seen that player kill perfectly on time. One of my friends was actually on the deck, he and I both knew that's more consistency than that deck is capable of).
Day 2, the only guy on Grishoalbrand stomped in game 2. At 16 life, I offered an end-step bolt on turn 4. He tapped out, exiled a Simian Spirit Guide, Breached Griselbrand, drew 28 cards and killed me. In his end step. Because I offered a bolt. Plus the aforementioned Naya Burn deck on 4 Mutagenic Growths. A few other tales from other Jund players were similar stories of 'oops, I win' moments.
That said, if I had it to do over again, yes, I'd probably play Abzan. I sided out Lightning Bolts in so many matches I was wondering why I had them. Bob bled me so bad in so many games that I was forced to lean on Scavenging Ooze way harder than I should have to (I even mainboarded Huntmaster to offset the deck's willingness to kill its pilot...no regrets there, tho, he was an all-star all weekend). It's just that Path to Exile is so much more relevant now, Lingering Souls wreaks havoc on Grixis, and Siege Rhino is just plain gross. Plus, it'd be nice to pilot a deck where Tasigur is more relevant (I hate him in Jund...like, a lot. I cut him completely, in favor of Huntmasters).
I don't think you can discount Jund won the whole dang thing, even if Herrara's list was weird. But, and this a big but...Herrara came to the PPTQ at my store a few weeks ago with almost that exact same list and didn't even top 8. The deck is very feast or famine. One of the guys on Grixis Control on Day 2 said something I felt was really relevant to the current metagame with Jund. He said 'Jund was the deck of spectacular 2-for-1's until they banned Bloodbraid. K-Command makes sure that Grixis has that title now.' He's absolutely right. Jund can play 40% of the same cards as Grixis, and Grixis still plays them better, because of Snapcaster and the tiny bit of countermagic.
Now I haven't played Jund myself in quite a while and I noticed that there were different paths that I could have taken, especially against Merfolk. It really was much tougher than I had originally thought that it was and I
probablydefinitely didn't play it as well as I played the other decks. That being said, these matchups really seemed tougher than I had expected.Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I don't fear the Merfolk mu in the slightest. I also run 2 SB Choke, so that might explain the better performance g2/3. Actually, I think I had 2 Merfolk matches this weekend, and I distinctly remember the game on Day 2 was a blowout. Lili/Chandra was active in game 1, and Choke/Lili in g2, it was just absolutely horrible on my opponent. K-Command getting 2-for-1 value on Aether Vial and a lord is gross, and I don't think I dropped a goyf smaller than 4/5 because of it. The early hand attacks really cut them deep, too. This isn't a blue deck that draws much, so it's easy to capitalize.
I think Jund is very strong, don't get me wrong. 'Best deck' is too bold a statement, I think. There's a lot of combo that is too dependent on having the right card at the right time, whether it's hand disruption, decay, terminate, or sideboard hate. Couple that with how diverse the meta is right now, i'd be amazed if any deck could be called a 'best deck' by any metric. Right now, you can basically say a tier 1 deck is one that only got 1 or 2 terrible matchups and even money on the rest of them. Jund definitely fits that qualification, but so do a LOT of other decks right now. I mean, Lantern Control just popped up, there wasn't even a thread for Naya Company on here for weeks despite taking 2 opens over the last few weeks, and now we have proof that a U/W control deck can go the distance, so that's somewhat uncharted territory.
It's an amazing time to be a modern fan, that's all I'm saying.