This past weekend I participated in a PPTQ. Now normally I would stick to Abzan Company since it’s the deck I have the most experience with in modern – generally a good strategy. Except for the fact that I knew a lot of the field was going to be playing Jund, which is a tough matchup for the Abzan Company deck. This left me with three other options: Bogles, Death’s Shadow Zoo or play Jund myself. I didn’t want to play Death’s Shadow Zoo in this tournament either since it also suffers from a bad Jund matchup, and Bogles is very much 50/50 against Jund. This left me with Jund, a deck which I’ve played in a few events but overall don’t have a huge amount of experience with. If you can’t beat them, join them. My teammates were also planning on playing Jund, however upon seeing their lists they were not playing traditional Jund. They were playing a build with a higher mana curve and no Dark Confidants. I decided to stick to traditional Jund, and played a fairly stock list of it:

Jund Midrange

The Pia and Kiran Nalaar in the sideboard was a last minute switch, as it was originally an Ishkanah, Grafwidow. I decided to play the tried and tested card over standard all star on the morning of the tournament, but if I had to play the tournament again I would play Ishkanah.

THE TOURNAMENT

Round 1: Eggs

I sit down across from my opponent and he starts with 2x Lotus Bloom and an Chromatic Star. I realise what I’m up against, and start to think of what interaction I have that actually helps me in the matchup. Inquisitions and Lilianas are both bad, since Inquisition can’t hit their payoff spells, Faith’s Reward and Open the Vaults, and Liliana just lets them put their artifacts into the graveyard for free. Abrupt Decay suffers from a similar problem, though it is useful to be able to force them to combo off in upkeep if you are Decaying a Lotus Bloom which can be relevant. I swiftly lose Game One, and start to wonder if I can actually interact at all.

I sideboarded like so:

IN

+2 Ancient Grudge, +1 Engineered Explosives

OUT

2x Terminate, 1x Slaughter Pact

In my Game Two opening hand, I see Scavenging Ooze and I realise that I do in fact have interaction. I play the Scavenging Ooze and it turns out my opponent had a weak draw, so I take game 2.

Game Three, Scavenging Ooze again puts in a lot of work keeping his graveyard free of artifacts. There’s also a turn where I was able to Ancient Grudge + flashback Grudge to kill both of his Lotus Blooms which I then exiled with Scavenging Ooze to stop him getting them back. This left him with just one mana available. On the final turn of the game, I needed my Raging Ravine to win the game. My opponent plays Ghost Quarter, and sacrifices it targeting his Darksteel Citadel to search up a basic land. He then sacrifices his two Chromatic artifacts, and casts a Faith’s Reward. I exile one of the artifacts with Ooze, then go to exile the second and realise that Faith’s Reward brings back all permanents, not just artifacts, I correct myself and exile the Ghost Quarter. My opponent is left dead on board and tapped out.

W 2 – 1

Round 2: Elves

The round started inauspicously with a slight hiccup in table numbering, but once that was sorted i sat down ready to play Game one was uneventful, with my opponent mulliganning to five and it being a relatively favourable matchup. I turn one Inquisition’d them and saw two lands (but no black source), Elvish Visionary, Shaman of the Pack, and Elvish Archdruid. I take the Archdruid, and aim to take advantage of my opponent’s slower draw. As expected, his first play is turn three Archdruid, which I promptly Liliana out of the way. Next turn, they cast their Shaman of the Pack and are left with one card in hand. I use a removal spell on Shaman and empty their hand with Liliana, and they concede the game.

I sideboard like so:

IN

+2 Grim Lavamancer, +1 Damnation, +1 Engineered Explosives, +1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar,

+1 Curse of Death’s Hold

OUT

4x Liliana of the Veil, 2x Thoughtseize

Unfortunately, I don’t remember much of game two, other than the fact that I lost it. My opening hand for game three is great: 3 Lands, Kolaghan’s Command, Explosives, Bolt, Lavamancer. I still spent some time “thinking” to disguise this. My opponent makes a turn one elf as expected, and I play the explosives on autopilot. On second thought, I’m not sure if that was the correct play. It saves me one mana, but my opponent then knows about it and can play around it. The game ends up being pretty close since my opponent played around explosives for a long time as expected, and also had a pretty strong hand that allowed them to do this. I end up winning.

W 2 – 1

Overall 2 – 0

R3: “Griselbrand Graveyard Things”

I don’t remember much of the details of this match as they were both long and drawn out games. They were lost when my opponent managed to sneak a Griselbrand, or Necrotic Ooze with Griselbrand in the yard, into play and draw 7 cards. This meant they were able to deal with all of my interaction and still have combo pieces left afterwards. After this happened in game one, I just held up Lightning Bolt in the hopes that my opponent would go to less than three life and I could steal the game (they were on 8 life). They did not make such an error, and I lost game one.

In game two, I managed to stick a Scavenging Ooze, which bought me lots of time. Fast forward  to the critical turn of the game: I have a 4/4 Scavenging Ooze and an untapped Raging Ravine. I also have a tapped Raging Ravine and a tapped Swamp. I have a Lightning Bolt in my hand and it’s my opponent’s end step. They have a lot of cards in hand, are at 6 life and have a Necrotic Ooze in play (but no creatures in his graveyard. There are sufficient creatures in my graveyard to make Scavenging Ooze lethal. I can Bolt the Necrotic Ooze, untap and win, but then I lose to Lightning Axe. He kills my Scavenging Ooze, and gets to use the ability of whichever creature they choose to discard. Since I figure my opponent has to chump block if they don’t have it anyway, I just untap and attack.When they block as expected, I exile a creature from my graveyard to make it a chump block. My opponent has the Lightning Axe, but only discards a land. I Lightning Bolt their Necrotic Ooze, and the game continues. They cast Life from the Loam a couple times, put Borborygmos, Enraged into play and discard 7 lands to kill me.

L 0 – 2

Overall 2 – 1

R4: Jund Delirium

This round I was paired against my teammate, Will Hall, piloting a slightly different build of Jund with Traverse the Ulvenwald, Ishkanah, Grafwidow and Goblin Dark Dwellers over Dark Confidant. The first hard choice of the match comes on turn 3 of game one where we both have three lands and no other permanents and I cast Inquisition of Kozilek. His hand is Liliana of the Veil, Lightning Bolt, Abrupt Decay, Traverse the Ulvenwald. His graveyard is Instant, Land, Sorcery. My hand is Bolt, Bolt, Decay, Kalitas. I realise that he didn’t cast Liliana on turn 3, so he’s waiting for me to play a creature and is going to two-for- one me with it. I ended up taking the Liliana of the Veil, since I can just kill anything he Traverse’s for that he can currently cast. Will casts Traverse for Ishkanah, and promptly draws two lands for it and I lose. I’m pretty sure that I should have just taken the Traverse, and was rightly punished for not doing so, because the Jund mirror is unlikely to end so quickly that Will doesn’t have time to draw two lands.

Game Two, I win with a more aggressive hand and a timely Maelstrom Pulse off the top ofmy deck. Better lucky than good, eh.

Game Three, Will manages to stick a Liliana of the Veil that I can’t deal with and ultimates it, leaving me with a 3/3 Scavenging Ooze and 2 blackcleave cliffs. This is surprisingly not a bad spot considering I just got Liliana ultimate’d. However he had drawn a Goblin Dark-Dwellers for turn, which flashback’d a Dreadbore on my Scavenging Ooze and I lost the game.

L 1 – 2

Overall 2 – 2 out of contention.

R5: Living End

In round 5 I’m paired against living end, which I’m pretty sure is one of Jund’s worst matchups. You need to draw scavenging ooze, and have enough green mana to exile creatures at the same pace they’re discarding them.

My G1 opening hand is 5 lands, Dark Confidant, Lightning Bolt. Knowing I’m out of contention anyway, I keep and hope Dark Confidant can dig me out of it. I concede the game with four lands on the battlefield and six land + lightning bolt in hand.

My G2 opening hand looks better, with 2 lands, Dark Confidant, Scavenging Ooze and some interactive spells. I play the Dark Confidant but end up stuck on two lands meaning that the Scavenging Ooze couldn’t exile creatures fast enough to stop the opponent’s graveyard getting out of control.

L 0 – 2

Overall 2 – 3

Not exactly the finish I was expecting after such a strong start, but I was happy with how I played (mostly) and that’s what counts. Be sure to let me know in the comments section if you disagree with any of the lines I took in these matches.

Thanks for reading.