Which 1st place decklist do you prefer?

[Squirrel Token]

From last week, the two first place winners from the ptq's caught my eye. Which one would you say would be a better pick for ptq's coming up? It's basically Traditional Jund or a new M11 take on it with Grave Titan's and SB Obstinate Baloth. I'll have to try out the Grave Titan Jund list before I make any decision but, I'm really liking it. Though I think it's a bit too little lands. Running 25 lands in Jund just seems too little. I think I'd replace a Terminate with either another Forest or a Dragonskull Summit. I also think it needs a couple Bituminous Blast to stand a chance in the mirror.

Las Vegas PTQ, 1st place.

Deck
Creatures 4 Bloodbraid Elf 3 Grave Titan 4 Putrid Leech 4 Sprouting Thrinax Instants 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Terminate Planeswalkers 2 Garruk Wildspeaker Sorceries 4 Blightning 4 Maelstrom Pulse 2 Rampant Growth	Basic Lands 3 Forest 3 Mountain 3 Swamp Lands 3 Dragonskull Summit 1 Lavaclaw Reaches 4 Raging Ravine 4 Savage Lands 4 Verdant Catacombs	Sideboard: 4 Obstinate Baloth 1 Doom Blade 3 Duress 4 Pyroclasm 3 Thought Hemorrhage

Concord, NH 1st place

Deck
Creatures 4 Bloodbraid Elf 4 Putrid Leech 2 Siege-Gang Commander 4 Sprouting Thrinax Instants 3 Bituminous Blast 4 Lightning Bolt 2 Terminate Planeswalkers 2 Sarkhan the Mad Sorceries 4 Blightning 4 Maelstrom Pulse	Basic Lands 3 Forest 4 Mountain 3 Swamp Lands 4 Dragonskull Summit 4 Raging Ravine 1 Rootbound Crag 4 Savage Lands 4 Verdant Catacombs	Sideboard: 4 Goblin Ruinblaster 2 Malakir Bloodwitch 4 Overgrown Battlement 3 Doom Blade 2 Slave of Bolas

[the illusionist]

Id have to go with the first one only because of the obsinate baloths in the SB but thats my decision

[Eladamri, Lord of Vegas]

Baloth's are a waste of a spot. I got 9th at NH playing jund screwed out of top 8. Interestingly enough I was the winner's only loss all day and our mainboards are almost exactly the same(not counting lands), I had a bloodwitch instead of one of the siege-gangs and and a bolt swapped out for the 3rd terminate. Our boards were only 5 cards different too.

You do not keep blightning in against anything running green. Because of this you do not need the baloth in the sb because no competent jund player will keep blightning in against you. In other words, the fact that the baloth exists obsoletes it.

I did not run it and was very happy even though I played 2 mirror matches and 1 rdw. I believe, I was 100% correct in not running it and still would be even if the tournament was nothing but jund.

Looking at the first list there are a bunch of things I don't like. I already talked about the baloths so I will skip that.

First Grave Titans they are good and I definitely would have run 1 instead of my singleton siege-gang if I had the cash, as it was I left all of it at home and didn't have time to go to an atm because we were running late I ended up borrowing some from a friend which was enough for the entrance fee sleeves and food for the day. I however do not like 3 three 6 drops. I mean most people cut broodmates from 2 to 1 or 0 because 6 mana was too slow. Now the titan is really powerful and is new so I can understand trying 1 or 2 but 3 seems like overkill, especially when your only ramp is 2x garruk.
EDIT: Just noticed I missed the rampant growths. It seems a bit better but brings up another problem for me which is I feel ramp jund is weak in a meta of UW turboland and titan decks where you want to drop threats and put pressure against most of the field not ramp into a 6 drop that will probably get countered.

Which brings me to my second point. 2 garruks and no sarkhans seems bad. I guess it helps with the titans but, especially with the rise in popularity of permission based UWx control it seems really sub par. You don't want to be ramping against them, you want to be curving out forcing them to waste counters on your earlier stuff before you drop your bombs.

No bituminous blast seems odd, it's not great against titan decks but it's good against UW, turboland, jund, naya, and bant.

No bloodwitches seems very odd, unless he knew he wouldn't be seeing very many UW, bant or arguably naya decks.

I'm not sure what the pyroclasms are for, my best guess would be bant and naya for their ramp critters which seems strong against naya but only decent against the bant decks where you optimally want to kill their turn 1 2 and 3 dudes immediatly meaning it will usually only hit 1 or 2 things which is still good. I would rather have more targetted removal against them I think though.

Just my 2+ cents

[Dragon23]

I have to pick Concord because I play a very similar deck. I will say outright that I do a fusion netdeck style by taking a lot of netdecks and comparing new choices and similarities, so I may try the Concord SB to see how it goes versus my current build.

[michaelsunday]

I really like the Concord List. I played similar list at my local FNM and was wondering how to sideboard against Jund. Does Slave of Bolas get sided in? Are Ruinblasters boarded in only on the play? And what cards would you take out. Lightning Bolt, Terminate, Maelstrom Pulse, Blightnings? Which of these are weakest against the mirror?

I was not certain but my thoughts are that Slave of Bolas is only good if targeting a Sprouting Thrinax, so I don't think it meant to be sided in against Jund. Ruinblasters should be sided in only on the play because when playing on the draw, you usually have to play catch up. I feel Maelstrom Pulse should be considered first to take out and then Lightning Bolts. Boarding out Blightnings is a tough decision if they are playing Obstinate Baloth because you can play Blightnings later in the game and a good Jund player won't hold it in their hand and play nothing on their turn, waiting for the discard. And because of this, it would probably be best to have a Lightning Bolt kill a Bloodbraid or Siege-Gang. To be clear, I am not declaring the best way to sideboard against the mirror, but these are my thoughts based on previous experience.

[soggy_oggy]

Originally Posted by michaelsunday

I really like the Concord List. I played similar list at my local FNM and was wondering how to sideboard against Jund. Does Slave of Bolas get sided in? Are Ruinblasters boarded in only on the play? And what cards would you take out. Lightning Bolt, Terminate, Maelstrom Pulse, Blightnings? Which of these are weakest against the mirror?

I was not certain but my thoughts are that Slave of Bolas is only good if targeting a Sprouting Thrinax, so I don't think it meant to be sided in against Jund. Ruinblasters should be sided in only on the play because when playing on the draw, you usually have to play catch up. I feel Maelstrom Pulse should be considered first to take out and then Lightning Bolts. Boarding out Blightnings is a tough decision if they are playing Obstinate Baloth because you can play Blightnings later in the game and a good Jund player won't hold it in their hand and play nothing on their turn, waiting for the discard. And because of this, it would probably be best to have a Lightning Bolt kill a Bloodbraid or Siege-Gang. To be clear, I am not declaring the best way to sideboard against the mirror, but these are my thoughts based on previous experience.

Basically with concord's build the sideboard in the mirror match should look like this.

IN:
4 Overgrown Battlement
4 Goblin Ruinblaster

OUT:
4 Blightning
4 Maelstrom Pulse

Not every Jund player runs Baloth's sideboard but it's enough that you should in fact side them out game 2 or unless you know their build. I don't really like slave of bolas myself since I would rather cast a bit blast at the end of their turn or after they declare attackers; the 2 for one in my opinion makes it a better card. I run prophetic prism in its place in my board because spreading seas is still run more often than not in my local meta.

[exvsmunky]

I'm actually starting to lose my mind trying to build the right Jund - I've played them all and they're all great!!!!!!!!! Yesterday I even played the Melis/Dutch version with no bolt/blightning and that was still pretty good (although, I would say it's not strong enough against UW).

Are other people finding this tough?

[Tigris]

Originally Posted by exvsmunky

I'm actually starting to lose my mind trying to build the right Jund - I've played them all and they're all great!!!!!!!!! Yesterday I even played the Melis/Dutch version with no bolt/blightning and that was still pretty good (although, I would say it's not strong enough against UW).

Are other people finding this tough?

I and a friend of mine both are headint to nationals this weekend and we both keep changing our decklists and sideboards.

Since in our country there are (besides nationals and national qualifier) no T2 tournaments I don't really know what version and especially not which sideboard cards I should run...

If someone has any tipps this would be great.


From the decks above I like both versions, but both versions each run 2 cards i don't personally like (rampant growth since I always cascade in such cards when they are in my deck..) and Siege Gang Commander (I know a lot of people like him and he is good, but he never impressed me and was a lot of the time underperforming (he gets too oft just bolted, and then I would prefer just another finisher, also I hate it when I have to spend 5 and then 6 mana and so losing two turn with him, when I can't afford it..)

[urafever]

I think grave titan is a great addition. I'm not sure how to fit him in right now, but there are a lot of decks right now that are just eating my jund deck up.

u/w control with mana leak is quite good (it really makes a huge difference), and the various fauna shaman decks are tough to beat.

I'm not sure what the best route to go with jund is right now, but I'm pretty sure that grave titan is going to be involved.

I think the direction to go is with a more "control" oriented build with 4 bolts, 4 pulses, and 4 terminates. Probably room for slave of bolas somewhere too.

Long Story Short: I would go with the first list. (although I would remove the rampant growths)

[Divisionbyzer0]

Use titan over broodmate, if you are using broodmate.

[urafever]

Originally Posted by urafever

I think grave titan is a great addition. I'm not sure how to fit him in right now, but there are a lot of decks right now that are just eating my jund deck up.

u/w control with mana leak is quite good (it really makes a huge difference), and the various fauna shaman decks are tough to beat.

I'm not sure what the best route to go with jund is right now, but I'm pretty sure that grave titan is going to be involved.

I think the direction to go is with a more "control" oriented build with 4 bolts, 4 pulses, and 4 terminates. Probably room for slave of bolas somewhere too.

Long Story Short: I would go with the first list. (although I would remove the rampant growths)

Update: after playing that deck for a while, the rampant growths need to stay in. With the growths and garruk, you can power out a turn 4 grave titan -- something I didn't realize just looking at the list.

Sure, it isn't the best cascade, but its still decent enough. Also, playing 2x rampant growths allows you to play 25 lands, because you can tutor for them. (though I may up it to 26).

I'm playing a list very similar to the vegas one, with 3x grave titan, ruinblasters and slave of bolas in the mix. So far I've done well online.

[Killax]

I would go for a mix of both (not the answer you where looking for, I know) but like mentioned the grave titan and garruk make things happen (specialy because now garruk has even more potential overrun dmg, grave+2 2/2's = cdmg 19, double dragon = cdmg 14. Really is mind blowing.

However, because of this I would cut 1 bolt and 1 terminate to include 2 bit blasts, like the 2nd list. You don't want to cascade twice into Garruk obviously, but it still gives you a great possibility to gain loads of cardadvantage.

[urafever]

Originally Posted by Killax

I would go for a mix of both (not the answer you where looking for, I know) but like mentioned the grave titan and garruk make things happen (specialy because now garruk has even more potential overrun dmg, grave+2 2/2's = cdmg 19, double dragon = cdmg 14. Really is mind blowing.

However, because of this I would cut 1 bolt and 1 terminate to include 2 bit blasts, like the 2nd list. You don't want to cascade twice into Garruk obviously, but it still gives you a great possibility to gain loads of cardadvantage.

Yeah - I think you are right. I had a really rough time yesterday online with this deck. I ended up getting eliminated in the first round of a tournament twice - something that literally hasn't happened to me in months of play (I can't actually remember the last time it happened).

I had cut bit blasts to make room for slave of bolas, but the bit blasts may need to return, as slave is useless against celestial collonade. Also, there is a need for more instant-speed removal against fauna shaman decks.

So -- good points all around. I'll be editing my deck with them in mind.

UPDATE/EDIT: as I initially thought, those rampant growths have got to go. The fauna naya decks, ect are just too stacked w/ good cards. It is such a terrible cascade and top-deck that it isn't worth playing.