Faithless looting is good card filtering in our colors. We just need 1 or 2 ways to mitigate the card disadvantage and turn it into an advantage.
Looting feels like the best filtering we will ever get in our colors.
Hmm. Maybe there is some merit to a Jund Arclight deck? Similar in construction to Mardu Pyro but with green for a better clock and removal? Arclight gives some payoff to faithless looting that doesnt require white.
I'm not sure this is on topic for this thread anymore though. This would be a completely difference deck.
If you want to completely smash the slow matchups, Tracker will do that. I think choke is unbelievably narrow and not something that Jund would ever want to use a sideboard slot on and I'm not sure it is even better against control than
a resolved Tracker+fetch.
If you really don't have much big mana then Tracker is probably what I would lean towards. I know that some other people endorse 4 and 5 mana planeswalkers, but I think Tracker will outgrind all of them if you're patient with your lands.
But Fulminator even after all these years is still good. He's just so flexible. He's not as good as Tracker in the slow matchups, but he's decent at killing their manlands and sometimes causing your opponent to stumble on mana (preventing control from playing Teferi can be a big deal) and he's of course a lot more disruptive against the big mana decks and such.
So if you truly have a wide open metagame then just jam more Fulminators. UW can sometimes just fetch all basics (but not always) and if they can't then each Fulminator often gets better than the last (you can sometimes play like a Ponza deck). A Liliana + Fulminator combo can be really hard for a slower deck to get out from.
I think that confidant is the best turn 2 play the deck has against every deck in the format other than burn and bushwacker zoo.
Other exceptions are if your opponent looks like he is looking to play a grindy game and you have another turn 2 play then you play that first to bait out their removal and play confidant after.
I also think that against most decks mana efficiency/tempo is more important than life. Casting your spells on time will usually save you more life in the end than taking turns off to play it safe. (This is a rule of thumb and not an ALWAYS thing. Magic is too complicated for rules like that)
Is that deck playing 10 3 mana spells and 4 bbe? On 24 lands? That is ridiculously greedy. And risk factor doesnt impact the board in any way. There might be some merit to the card, but I dont think the deck that includes it looks like that
I dont think you're bringing leyline in against UWx control. It doesn't hurt them enough to be worth the opportunity cost.
Dont bring surgical in against fair decks. Stop. I dont want to be harsh, but surgical is probably the card most overboarded in modern. Nihil spellbomb replaces itself so it is reasonable to bring in against fair decks as some splash hate to slow them down.
As a general rule: Surgical and Leyline are only good if your opponent isnt playing fair.
What I gain is that if I HAVE to play a removal spell on turn 2, I can. I think this is better than playing more 3 mana spells like everyone else is. 4 lilia, 4 bbe, 2 kcommands and 1 pulse seems to be the most common setup for spells 3 mana and above. I just don't want to play that many. Is trophy awkward sometimes? Yeah. I think it's better than more 3 drops though.
You cant cant ever cast maelstrom pulse or kcommand on turn 2 and it's way harder to double spell with them on turn 4. Yes you will probably get a 2 for 1 with you kcommand and possibly your pulse. But you could also be dead before the value matters.
I think if you play enough other early removal options to minimize the chances that you have to play trophy on turn2, then 4 trophies is justifiable (I play 2 mainboard brutalities and 2 pushes) but I'm pretty adamant about keeping my curve mainboard as low as possible. I'm more worried about my opponent going under me than over me in game 1 and then I'll board into slower value cards in games 2 and 3.
Choke is just so incredibly narrow. Ir also doesnt actually kill them, just slows them down. Tracker is also a bomb in the midrange mirrors. When it comes to over extending, you can just play tracker on her own and she applies enough pressure she must be removed and you can keep cracking clues and making her huge until she dies.
Tracker just does everything we want in the grindy matchups. If you play tracker+fetch it's an immediate 3 for 1 that gets even better if it stays in play.
I think you have a few options. You can try to play around their sweepers and go toe to toe with their planeswalkers with your own. Chandra, Nissa, and some are playing Angrath.
I think those are reasonable options for fighting them. My worry is that this makes your curve pretty high.
I prefer to keep my curve as low as possible to make sure that Bob isn't a liability and I don't like walking my expensive spells into their counters. I'm instead fighting them with a couple durresses in the side for more 1 mana disruption (being able to snag Jace, Terminus, Teferi and more without the life loss is relevant) and then I'm playing Tireless Tracker as my way to fight them in the card advantage war.
I think Tracker has been underutilized by Jund so far. She has been used to good success in the other builds of BGx and I think she is the perfect way to keep your curve low and still be able to keep up. You can also hit her off of BBE which is another big plus (although if they have instant speed removal then she can die before you get the land in play, but I think this is worth the tradeoff of being able to draw into her more often). Playing BBE and then seeing your other haymakers go to the bottom with BBE doesn't feel great.
So you gain 2 1 CMC removal spells and kcommand, but you're going to lose extra life to your manabase and wont have mainboard brutality. I'm not sure it's worth it? I think it is probably close. Grim lavamancer and better manlands are a real gain though. And the reach can be valuable against decks you need to kill quickly.
Looting feels like the best filtering we will ever get in our colors.
I'm not sure this is on topic for this thread anymore though. This would be a completely difference deck.
Gruul and Rakdos are in the next Ravnica set?
If you could make a dream card for us, what would it be?
(Is this a relevant enough topic for this thread?)
a resolved Tracker+fetch.
If you really don't have much big mana then Tracker is probably what I would lean towards. I know that some other people endorse 4 and 5 mana planeswalkers, but I think Tracker will outgrind all of them if you're patient with your lands.
But Fulminator even after all these years is still good. He's just so flexible. He's not as good as Tracker in the slow matchups, but he's decent at killing their manlands and sometimes causing your opponent to stumble on mana (preventing control from playing Teferi can be a big deal) and he's of course a lot more disruptive against the big mana decks and such.
So if you truly have a wide open metagame then just jam more Fulminators. UW can sometimes just fetch all basics (but not always) and if they can't then each Fulminator often gets better than the last (you can sometimes play like a Ponza deck). A Liliana + Fulminator combo can be really hard for a slower deck to get out from.
Other exceptions are if your opponent looks like he is looking to play a grindy game and you have another turn 2 play then you play that first to bait out their removal and play confidant after.
I also think that against most decks mana efficiency/tempo is more important than life. Casting your spells on time will usually save you more life in the end than taking turns off to play it safe. (This is a rule of thumb and not an ALWAYS thing. Magic is too complicated for rules like that)
Dont bring surgical in against fair decks. Stop. I dont want to be harsh, but surgical is probably the card most overboarded in modern. Nihil spellbomb replaces itself so it is reasonable to bring in against fair decks as some splash hate to slow them down.
As a general rule: Surgical and Leyline are only good if your opponent isnt playing fair.
You cant cant ever cast maelstrom pulse or kcommand on turn 2 and it's way harder to double spell with them on turn 4. Yes you will probably get a 2 for 1 with you kcommand and possibly your pulse. But you could also be dead before the value matters.
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Assassin's Trophy
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Fatal Push
2 Collective Brutality
2 Swamp
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Anger of the Gods
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Collective Brutality
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Duress
Tracker just does everything we want in the grindy matchups. If you play tracker+fetch it's an immediate 3 for 1 that gets even better if it stays in play.
I think those are reasonable options for fighting them. My worry is that this makes your curve pretty high.
I prefer to keep my curve as low as possible to make sure that Bob isn't a liability and I don't like walking my expensive spells into their counters. I'm instead fighting them with a couple durresses in the side for more 1 mana disruption (being able to snag Jace, Terminus, Teferi and more without the life loss is relevant) and then I'm playing Tireless Tracker as my way to fight them in the card advantage war.
I think Tracker has been underutilized by Jund so far. She has been used to good success in the other builds of BGx and I think she is the perfect way to keep your curve low and still be able to keep up. You can also hit her off of BBE which is another big plus (although if they have instant speed removal then she can die before you get the land in play, but I think this is worth the tradeoff of being able to draw into her more often). Playing BBE and then seeing your other haymakers go to the bottom with BBE doesn't feel great.