Jund Fling Mastery: Farming Packs & Gems in MTG

Farming Packs and Gems with Jund Fling

Maximize your MTG rewards with a deep dive into Jund Fling strategies. Learn how to efficiently farm packs and gems while enjoying competitive play.

Playing Jund is usually a fun time no matter what archetype it is. Whether it's using silly combos, cheating out some dragons/dinosaurs, or just simply flinging creatures in the face of our opponent, it's hard to have a bad time. In this week's deck, we will be trying to fling some creatures in the face of our opponents, but we will also be using a new card from Murders at Karlov Manor that has kind of flown under the radar, and almost acts as a standard version of The Great Henge.

I personally believe that the deck and archetype are better suited for best-of-one due to its "gotcha" type of win condition. I also decided to try something different this time to see if we could use it to generate some resources in a Standard Bo1 Event.

MKM Cards Used in the Deck

Magic the Gathering Card - The Skullspore Nexus - MTG Circle

We use the Nexus in this deck for the exact reason that one would think, to double the power of a creature whose power is already pretty high. We have a few three mana creatures with six power and we are able to double that, and hopefully even fling it after attacking. The six power is particularly helpful in this scenario, because it also reduces the cost of the Nexus and allows us to cast it for two green mana. It allows us to get crazy value out of our creatures, and the triggered ability from our new artifact doesn't sound so bad either.

Magic the Gathering Card - Deadly Cover-Up - MTG Circle

You may have seen my appreciation for this new boardwipe previously, and if you haven't, there's another cool article recently published on MTG Circle about the new mono black deck to play in Standard where I discuss it more. Aside from that, we use it in case things get too out of control in our matchup. What's nice about it is that we do include Archfiend of the Dross in our deck, so if we do cast the board wipe while that card is out, we are able to generate some additional life loss from our opponent, and possibly use it as a finisher.

The One Trick Pony

Okay, you've seen which new cards I've included in this deck, and you can see the potential, so now what will we use to properly combo off against our opponents and pull off the sought -after one turn kill? First we will get our two large creatures on the board. We can either use Shakedown Heavy, or Pugnacious Hammerskull. While we do have other creatures that can get big enough to help us pull off our combo, these are the two options that will help us get there in the quickest and most efficient manner. The final piece to all of it after we get one of the creatures out and can connect with it for damage while having its power doubled with Nexus is Callous Sell-Sword. While the creature part of this adventure card isn't too bad either, we are particularly looking for the adventure spell that it has: Burn Together. This will allow us to use a one mana finisher post-combat to connect for twenty or more damage. Ideally, we can pull this off by turn four or turn five.

Mana Base Restrictions

We have a lot of demanding mana costs in the spells we are casting, and we want to have things properly set up for turn two and turn three to ensure that our combo is not delayed. This required running almost exclusively fast lands that won't enter the battlefield tapped as long as there are three lands or less on the board for us. We do use two Ziatora's Proving Ground, but those can be dropped on turn one at no penalty, and can be cycled to draw another card later in the game if need be. I opted to use little to none of the lands that require three or more on the battlefield to come in untapped, because it could interfere with sequencing. Due to this restriction, we also must rely pretty heavily on pain lands. Since we are looking for a quick win when our deck is working properly, we don't mind using our life total as a resource with pain lands.

Reasoning for Testing in Standard Events

A lot of the time, I might test decks on the ladder, but this time I wanted to take something unique into a Standard Bo1 Event to see how things play out. It never hurts to try this when a new set comes out, because there are always more packs to be opened, and more wildcards and gems to be acquired. I have personally been using this method for close to a year now, and I haven't had to buy packs within that time frame either. Usually you can use the gold that you acquire from completing daily quests to enter, and provided the win rate is over fifty percent, you can begin to farm. You will get gems and packs in return for this. Even if you are getting cards that you think you might not need, opening the packs still works toward your wildcard count. We all know that hitting mythic is the major monthly milestone in MTG Arena, but playing the events and even drafting can often provide great value in resources. If you do well enough, you can even earn play -in points from these constructed events, and that can get you entries into the events that a high-ranking ladder finish in a given season would yield anyhow. Not only do you get enough points for entry, but you earned way more packs and gems in doing so. There is value in putting time and effort into both sides of it during a given season, but at some point, the benefits of playing on ladder can plateau, while the rewards for doing well in events are constant.

Anyhow, enough of my banter on how I believe one should play the game. It's time to go out there and see how much damage we can do to our opponents' face.

Rate this article

I am a Magic The Gathering competitive player, and streamer. I specialize in homebrew decks. My favorite formats are: Standard, Pioneer (Explorer on Arena), and EDH. I first started playing MTG in 2001, and have played on and off since then.

numb_skull_

Check out more content by Numbskull

Explore the highs and lows of MTG 2024, from format shakeups to standout cards and controversies. Discover key changes in Standard and more.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Recapping MTG in 2024

2024 was a huge year for MTG. It was a lot of things. Controversial, exciting, frustrating, promising, and refreshed. We saw some formats get ruined, then fixed, then ruined again. We saw some great changes to Standard that not everyone was fans of at first, but they seemed to quickly warm up to them. We saw Wizards effectively abandon a format in favor of propelling Standard into a more prominent position. We saw some great cards printed for Standard, and some promising things to come in the next year that were announced. Along with that, a fair amount of people were still bothered by the new trajectory of the format. Some are calling into question the longevity of MTG now with the heavy lean into Universes Beyond. A little bit of everything happened this year in the MTG world, and it was interesting if nothing else. On a personal level, it was also a hell of a year for me, as I took down two different events and grew a lot as a player. We are going to look at The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly from this year! The Good I have to admit, I'm pretty excited that we have an infinite gain and drain combo in Standard right now. With Enduring Tenacity and Bloodthirsty Conqueror having made a lot of my dreams come true in my favorite format. Although the deck isn't the most viable in the format, it is incredibly fun to play, and I'm just happy that we had such exciting cards printed in the format. It leads to good card design going forward, and gives us promise for what's to come in the next year.

Want to WIN Games in Standard? Play These Cards!

People often discuss win rates when cards are included in a deck, or maybe win rates if a card is drawn during a game. There is even something to take from the percentage of decks a card appears in. Sure, we can say x and y are good cards to put in your deck, but what cards are truly the best? Which ones give you the best chance of winning a game after you cast them? We are going to look at those cards today. We are effectively examining the biggest bombs in the format. There is still a concept of not relying on one card to win the game, and using synergies to win. I get it. I would invite you to consider, however, even if you do not plan to play any of these cards, you should definitely be aware of what is a bomb that needs your attention in the format. Without further ado, let's check out the bombs in Standard, and see how insane their win rates are. Standard Cards with Highest Win Rate (When Cast) Note that this statistic is simply if the card was cast from someone's hand. It does not look at whether or not the spell was resolved. I think this has bearing on the outcome of the game as well. If it gets countered or removed, we know it is also that much more important. This is why I believe looking at win rate when cast is the best metric for the biggest threats.

This Deck is Giving Everyone PROBLEMS in Pioneer

This is starting to feel like déjà vu. Remember the last time a Rakdos Deck was extremely powerful and the most popular deck in Pioneer? Interestingly enough, it is another midrange shell with a powerful combo. What's different this time, however, is that the cards are a lot more fair. This list is a little bit more well-balanced in my opinion. There is no broken turn three "deal with a Veinripper or lose" in this deck. It simply uses all of the best midrange value cards so well and with such synergy that most decks in the format cannot keep up. Nothing in the deck really feels broken to the point where you could pick out what card to ban. A lot of the cards that are good in the deck are played in other decks, so bans could have adverse effects that aren't good for the format. Nonetheless, the meta will either have to adapt to it, or we will need to see some new cards printed that make another deck good, or there will possibly end up being a ban. Rakdos Demons currently takes up 46% of the metashare, and it has plenty of top finishes in every tournament that it's in. To put things in perspective, the next closest deck in the format when it comes to metashare popularity is a few decks that have 6%. Rakdos Demons has consumed the format, and it would be hard to find someone who would tell you that it isn't the best deck. What's nice about it is that it is also playable on Arena, and because of Pioneer Masters, we aren't even missing any cards. You can jam this on MTGO, or Arena, or in paper. Either way you spin it, this deck kills! What I find interesting about how this deck has developed is that the list only plays two actual demon spells now. We have moved past the other demons that were in the list that could make things a bit clunky. Now, the deck is much faster. It has a lot of plays on turns two and three, and plays threats on those turns that demand answers, as opposed to dropping bombs on turn four. This deck oddly enough, only has 2 four mana spells. It's astonishing how much the list has evolved, and also how aggressive it has become with the tweaks. You've likely seen a few of these lists floating around, as it has been a deck for a few months now, so I will go over a couple of cards that have been added to it recently that contribute to the aggressive nature of the deck. New Additions

It's Official, We've Lived Long Enough to See Ourselves Become the Villain. Time for Mono Black Discard

There comes a time in every Magic player's tenure where they are simply fed up with everything that they are seeing in the meta. Some move to playing decks that remove everything, or decks that counter everything - sometimes both. Some of us simply don't let our opponents have any cards in hand, and that's what I've opted to do today. There's something that just feels right about making the opponent have zero cards in their hand while we continue to draw and play threats onto the board. Discard went well in the meta a few months ago before Duskmourn came out, and I think it is possible for it to be good again. The win rate so far with our deck is solid, but it is different from the one we played before. This time we are looking to add some card superiority into the list, and the same card that accomplishes that allows us to play fewer creatures to focus on more discard spells, and efficient removal. Let's take a look at the new discard deck in the Foundations Meta. This deck got a little bit more consistency and some extra win conditions from Duskmourn, and it is refreshing to know that we have more threats to draw, and we now have a higher likelihood of drawing them. We want to try and draw as many cards as we can with this deck, because some of the better lists that are out there will also draw a ton of cards. We look to punish our opponent for drawing cards, and for not having cards in their hand. We also look to benefit from drawing cards while punishing our opponent simultaneously. The list has a ton of removal, because frankly there are some cards that are just too difficult to deal with in Standard and I got sick of waiting to sideboard and hoping that I drew the answers. We will go over the key changes from previous versions, and then we will go over the sideboard guide! New Additions to Mono Black Discard

Checking in on MTG Modern After the Recent Bans (and Unbans)

We are almost two weeks out from the recent bans in Modern, and there is now enough data to see if anything has really changed. Banning cards like The One Ring and Amped Raptor was an attempt to level the playing field in a format where it seemed as if it was difficult to win if you didn't play those cards. Both cards were two of the most popularly played nonland cards, and it was getting to the point where player sentiment about the format was increasingly poor. Wizards knew that they had to do something, and they also needed to do something that kept things interesting after banning two powerful cards. To keep things fresh, Wizards also unbanned Splinter Twin, Green Sun's Zenith, Mox Opal, and Faithless Looting. This seems to be somewhat reasonable so far. All of the cards light up different archetypes, and this was a clear effort to breathe life into the format. Now that Wizards has made their intentions clear on what they wanted to see out of the format, it begs the question: Has anything actually changed? Most Popular Cards in the Format Post-Bans Although it is refreshing to not see The One Ring as the most commonly played card in the format, there are still some of the usual suspects that round out the top ten most played nonland cards. Long story short, the energy decks are still the most popular, and the cards that are staples within the lists unsurprisingly are the most commonly played nonland cards in the format. Oddly enough, it appears that Mardu Energy has now become more popular than Boros Energy, which is an interesting shift.

A Product Change is Coming to Play Booster Boxes, and People are NOT Happy

Although we are still getting used to the new cards brought to us by Foundations, we have begun to get announcements about the next Standard-legal set, Aetherdrift. Aetherdrift will be the first set to come out in 2025, and it will also be the first Universes Beyond Standard-legal set. For those who aren't familiar, Universes Beyond sets are the ones that do not exclusively involve the traditional MTG characters and planes, although they can still be incorporated. What they do for the characters in the Universes Beyond sets is to have somewhat of a crossover between MTG and another universe in popular culture. We have seen them do Lord of the Rings, Assassin's Creed, etc. What is unique about the Universes Beyond sets going forward is that they will now be Standard-legal - something that has not been the case up until now. In fact, almost all of the Universes Beyond sets were strictly Commander, Legacy, and Vintage-legal up until now, with the exception of Lord of the Rings also being legal in Modern. That is a change that we did know about , however, but the latest updates follow up on the new changes that we will see starting next year. Changes to Play Booster Boxes So what is this big change? How will it affect MTG?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Recapping MTG in 2024