Post-rotation decks #1: Jund Ramp
Posted by gatch | Labels: Magic: the Gathering | Posted On Friday, October 2, 2009 at 9:56 AM
With Lorwyn's rotation out of Standard just around the corner Iv'e been busy cooking up new decklists that I believe would be competitve in the new standard metagame. Lowryn block takes along with it many of the most powerful decks currently dominating the format, such as Faeries, Kithkin, Reveillark, Elfball and 5 Color Control. Left almost unscathed is the TimeSeive combo deck, and to some extent Jund and Naya were able to keep their key cards for another year. Esper Aggro lost nothing at all being a viable deck in Block, but gained little as well in the Zendikar cardpool. Mill decks got quite a boost on the other hand, and the strategy might actually be competitive in the fresh meta. As for brand new decks, Black Vampires are looking good with the wide array of utility creatures and spells in it's arsenal, followed closely by White based Soldier/Kor decks attempting to be this season's Kithkin counterpart. The Landfall, Trap, Kicker, and Ally mechanics look promising as well, though out of the lot I believe Landfall will be the most relevant, as it tends to generate card advantage. Ally decks are being dubbed as the new Slivers, but I doubt if the mass of 2/2 creatures with 4+ converted casting costs will be much of a threat, especially with the psuedo-Wrath Day of Judgement in the picture. Taking all of this into consideration, Iv'e decided that I would build 3 decks: Mono-Black Vampires, Mono-White or Green-White Soldiers, and Jund Ramp. For today I'll be discussing the Jund Ramp decklist I drafted up.
I actually didn't use a lot of Zendikar cards, except for the Black/Green fetch lands (getting a playset of these will be as easy as walking into Mordor with intentions of throwing the One Ring into the fires of mount doom...), the reprinted Harrow and the cool new legend Ob Nixilis the Fallen. Zendikar provided Lotus Cobra, but I don't think I should rely too much on creature-based ramp effects with Lightning bolt, Path to Exile, and Doomblade in the meta. I wouldn't mind opening one in a pack though. I decided to go with the traditional ramp effects and Garruk Wildspeaker. The thing about Garruk is he can protect himself and me with a beast token, then help with the mana ramping the next turn. With an open board he can even win the game on his own. I also kept the Cascade effects in the deck. Having no overly conditional spells in the lower curve of the deck, I should always get good cascades. That..and I love the look on my opponent's face when I turn up exactly what I need to win the game. Iv'e done this a couple of times in the past, and each time I topdecked that golden card it was met with a "Wow!", "Oh..", "Great play!", and more often "WTF!? LUCKY BASTARD!". I hit blanks too, but thats whats great about Cascade. You're in control of whats in your deck, so you can actually minimize if not eliminate blank cascades. In this deck the only blank I would hit would be a Garruk with one already in play, or Maelstrom pulse vs. a clean board..in which case it wouldn't have been that bad anyway as getting a 2 for 1 in that situation wasn't even necessary. Maelstrom pulses are a must, with all the crazy "quest" and "ascencion" enchantments being abused, not to mention hard to kill planeswalkers. I'm playing 4 maindeck just because they're the most versatile form of hard removal I've ever seen in the game. Ob Nixilis is plain good when you keep topdecking lands, and can end the game right there with a late Harrow. One copy is enough for an end-game legendary creature I think. The dragons are my lategame (or in a ramp deck's case, Midgame) bombs, all intended to turn the board around. Dropping one of them earlier than the turn they were intended for is the whole point of this deck. Violent ultimatum is there as a way out of a really bad board position (think Baneslayer and Broodmate + Buddy on the wrong side of the table), or if I get a good ramp progression it could lock the game in my favor. Iv'e actually never built a deck in this style before, so I might have gotten the design wrong, but only live playtesting in an actual tournament environment will prove anything. I just hope I get the pieces (especially the lands) by the first Zendikar-legal standard tourney. I'm still waiting on my set of textless bolts (wish ther were pulses though). They would look pimpin in the deck, but I'm afraid they might end up as trade fodder for the new lands. More deck ideas again soon!
I actually didn't use a lot of Zendikar cards, except for the Black/Green fetch lands (getting a playset of these will be as easy as walking into Mordor with intentions of throwing the One Ring into the fires of mount doom...), the reprinted Harrow and the cool new legend Ob Nixilis the Fallen. Zendikar provided Lotus Cobra, but I don't think I should rely too much on creature-based ramp effects with Lightning bolt, Path to Exile, and Doomblade in the meta. I wouldn't mind opening one in a pack though. I decided to go with the traditional ramp effects and Garruk Wildspeaker. The thing about Garruk is he can protect himself and me with a beast token, then help with the mana ramping the next turn. With an open board he can even win the game on his own. I also kept the Cascade effects in the deck. Having no overly conditional spells in the lower curve of the deck, I should always get good cascades. That..and I love the look on my opponent's face when I turn up exactly what I need to win the game. Iv'e done this a couple of times in the past, and each time I topdecked that golden card it was met with a "Wow!", "Oh..", "Great play!", and more often "WTF!? LUCKY BASTARD!". I hit blanks too, but thats whats great about Cascade. You're in control of whats in your deck, so you can actually minimize if not eliminate blank cascades. In this deck the only blank I would hit would be a Garruk with one already in play, or Maelstrom pulse vs. a clean board..in which case it wouldn't have been that bad anyway as getting a 2 for 1 in that situation wasn't even necessary. Maelstrom pulses are a must, with all the crazy "quest" and "ascencion" enchantments being abused, not to mention hard to kill planeswalkers. I'm playing 4 maindeck just because they're the most versatile form of hard removal I've ever seen in the game. Ob Nixilis is plain good when you keep topdecking lands, and can end the game right there with a late Harrow. One copy is enough for an end-game legendary creature I think. The dragons are my lategame (or in a ramp deck's case, Midgame) bombs, all intended to turn the board around. Dropping one of them earlier than the turn they were intended for is the whole point of this deck. Violent ultimatum is there as a way out of a really bad board position (think Baneslayer and Broodmate + Buddy on the wrong side of the table), or if I get a good ramp progression it could lock the game in my favor. Iv'e actually never built a deck in this style before, so I might have gotten the design wrong, but only live playtesting in an actual tournament environment will prove anything. I just hope I get the pieces (especially the lands) by the first Zendikar-legal standard tourney. I'm still waiting on my set of textless bolts (wish ther were pulses though). They would look pimpin in the deck, but I'm afraid they might end up as trade fodder for the new lands. More deck ideas again soon!
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