Playing Jund usually is 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 Manner 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 is better suited for best-of-one due to it's "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
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.
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 it's 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 teh 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 opponent's face.
