This week Kelly Reid jumps back in and tells us about different Jund sideboarding strategies. This is a guy who’s words I hang on, having recently made day 2 in GP DC, writes for all the top MTG blogs, has his own store, and networks with many of your favorite Pro’s.
The Benchwarmers – A Discourse on Sideboarding with Jund
Oh Jund. What a polarizing figure in our Standard metagame. What was once the boogeyman of the format is now just another deck, but rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated. The archetype placed three spots in the Top 8 of Grand Prix: DC, and took me into the second day of a Grand Prix for the first time. Needless to say, the deck is not dead. It’s just sleeping.
The thing about Jund is that people have pre-conceived notions about what a Jund deck needs to look like. Magic players on the whole are very guilty of this; we like to have strong opinions, and we love to be right. Unfortunately, having an inflexible opinion usually precludes being correct.
This is clearly evidenced by the three Jund lists from the top 8; all three have different maindeck selections. Brad Carpenter’s build uses Vengevines, Lotus Cobras and Hells Thunders in an effort to maintain tempo with other Lotus Cobra decks and hopes to assassinate Planeswalkers with its hasty threats. His Blightning is in the sideboard. Josh Wagener’s list plays the Blightnings main, and opts for a more traditional maindeck configuration, looking more like the Jund decks of Pre-Rise.
Finally, Owen Turtenwald’s deck chooses to run removal-heavy, anticipating correctly the Mythic-heavy metagame that was GP DC. Clearly, there was no “right” answer, as all three decks cracked the top 8 of North America’s largest Magic tournament ever.
Since there are so many reasons and ways to modify the main deck, I want to focus on sideboarding. I prefer to think that a good sideboard is more important than a good main deck, since a good ‘board can often turn unwinnable matches on their heads. You’ll play more games post-board too, so your sideboard’s 15 are more important than the last 15 of your main deck! Let’s take a look at the three sideboards that “got there”.
Owen Turtenwald
2 Doom Blade
4 Duress
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
1 Malakir Bloodwitch
2 Prophetic Prism
2 Pyroclasm
Owen’s sideboard lacks a lot of removal since his main deck includes 14 pure removal spells. Doom Blade is a great answer to a myriad of threats that cause Jund decks issues, and its usually an efficiency upgrade to Terminate against decks where the cards are one and the same.
Almost any match-up that calls for more spot removal will prefer Doom Blade to Terminate; the occasional Pro-Red creature is still dead to Blade, and there have been a few times where the 1B cost saved my skin whereas the RB cost would have sunk me. Duress is a killer against UW control type decks and Superfriends.
The 1x Malakir Bloodwitch is a bit confusing, since I can’t imagine bringing in only one against decks that are cold to her. I maindecked two and boarded a third, and loved every minute of it. Goblin Ruinblasters are phenomenal in a bunch of matchups, including the now-rare Mirror.
Pyroclasm was a card I considered for my board, but I ended up going with Cunning Sparkmage instead. You need cards that punish Lotus Cobra decks for playing a bunch of x/1 mana dorks, and either of those options, along with Forked Bolt, will work fine. Prophetic Prism is hilariously good technology against Spreading Seas decks, effectively countering every aspect of the Aura.
Josh Wagener
2 Deathmark
3 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Malakir Bloodwitch
4 Pithing Needle
3 Royal Assassin
I’m going to say that despite the fact that he made Top 8, I cannot agree with Deathmark in this board at all. Doom Blade is almost entirely better, since it deals with such hits as Celestial Colonnade and Gideon Jura (if they get supergreedy with Superfriends).
While Deathmark can send an early Birds or Hierarch to Boot Hill before it gets out of hand, I prefer to let their mana guys live unless I am very light on early action. If they run out of “real” threats, I’ll just win. If I waste removal on mana dorks, they might still topdeck land and cast their real killers.
I love the trip. Bloodwitches in this board, since some decks just can’t beat that card. Pithing Needle seems like a fantastic card against Superfriends, and I honestly want to try to find room for them in my Jund board. 4 seems like a lot, but it may be necessary. We’ve already discussed Ruinblasters, and I’d like to say that Royal Assassin is pretty hot new tech.
They exist for the Mythic matchup (Naya decks just Bolt the little bastard), and they do a great job. You really must stick one on turn 3, or else it will probably be too late. I prefer the Sparkmage/Collar package, which is an ace at picking off mana dorks and bigguns alike. Basilisk Collar can also put you back in some races that you’d have otherwise lost. Regardless, the Pinger Package takes up 7 ‘board slots and Royal Assassin only takes 4 at most.
Brad Carpenter
4 Blightning
4 Consuming Vapors
3 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Forked Bolt
2 Terminate
A man after my own heart! His main deck was very similar to mine, and his sideboard is packed full of hate for Mythic. I’d be running Doom Blades over Terminates as previously discussed, but I love the Consuming Vapors here. You can’t run Vapors if you’re playing Bituminous Blast (which Bradley is not), but it can be a total all-star.
The main issue with Vapors is against Naya/Mythic decks, in which mana dorks can really ruin your plan. That’s why Brad is boarding Forked Bolts and Cunning Sparkmages! His maindeck only plays 4 Maelstrom Pulses as removal, so boarding in the x/1 killers and Vapors makes a lot of sense. Lotus Cobra/Hierarch decks really like to have their mana develop unmolested, and this sideboard ensures that never happens.
Blightning being moved to the sideboard is interesting; Brad clearly wanted the threat density to support abuse of Lotus Cobra and Vengevine, two cards I strongly suggest be included in every Jund deck from here on out.
The main consideration for a sideboard-builder is the metagame. Knowing the metagame for the event you’re attending is more important than anything else. For DC, I was most afraid of the Mythic matchup. Perhaps I was not respecting the slower Blue decks enough, but I built my sideboard as follows:
My Sideboard
1 Malakir Bloodwitch (2 in the main)
1 Maelstrom Pulse (3 in the main)
3 Doom Blade (2 Terminate in main)
4 Cunning Sparkmage
3 Basilisk Collar
3 Hells Thunder
Except for the Hell’s Thunder, my board is dedicated to beating the Mythic deck. The cards against Mythic are also good against many other decks since they are broad, versatile answers. That allowed me to audible into new SB plans if there was technology about which I was unaware.
Hell’s Thunder is a fine complement to Bloodbraid Elf and Vengevine, causing opponents to play around it or risk blowout. The only real Control match I played on Day 1 was decided by Hell’s Thunder, where it proved invaluable. The Mythic decks are beginning to anticipate the Sparkmage combo out of Jund’s board now, and they should be bringing in Vapor Snare anyway to deal with Bloodwitch.
Be careful – I lost a match to Vapor Snare on my Sparkmage when I foolishly tapped it in my own main phase. Don’t do that unless you absolutely must.
There is no “correct” sideboard for Jund. There is only proper metagame analysis. If you anticipate a lot of Control decks or Planeswalker decks, cards like Duress and Blightning, as well as Hell’s Thunder, should find a home on your bench. If you anticipate a lot of Lotus Cobra & Noble Hierarch-centric decks, cheap sweepers and pingers should be a priority.
Decks that try to Go Big Fast will get rocked by things like Spark/Collar and Royal Assassin, as well as by instant spot removal like Doom Blade. When deciding between two cards, you need to not only evaluate how they play in the matchups you expect, but how they might play in matchups you don’t.
For example, if you are boarding Doom Blade for Mythic, but you anticipate a lot of Red-Black RDW style Sligh decks, you may choose to board Terminate instead. The efficiency loss due to the mana cost will likely be negated by the fact that it is a robust solution in your perceived metagame.
Sideboarding is a game of min-maxing, and the more value you can squeeze out of every board slot, the more likely it is that your board will be optimal. The easiest way to do this is to understand the metagame intimately and to prepare for it.
I went into DC totally blind to the metagame, but thanks to some last minute help from Thomas Dodd, Will Price, and the Pride of Canada Mr. Scotty Mac, I got the info and tech I needed to get me to Day 2. I pegged the metagame as being Mythic-heavy, and got paid off because I faced at least 4 Mythic decks on Day 1 alone.
I don’t recommend last-minute preparation, but when you must do so, be sure to do it right. See you kids next time, when I will hopefully have some more of Justin’s trades to tear apart.
Play your hardest,
KBR
QuietSpeculation.com
Kelly Reid, editor of financial news site http://www.quietspeculation.com, has been playing Magic the Gathering since 1994. With 15 years experience in the game, his goal is to teach others to fund their gaming through proactive speculation and intelligent trading.
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