This past weekend was Grand Prix Dallas, and the format was pleasantly Modern. I say pleasantly because I’ve always been a fan of Modern, but we don’t get many Modern events nowadays and a lot of people feel that the format is somehow “broken.” As someone who plays a good deal of Modern, I don’t necessarily share this sentiment, but that’s a story for another time.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been getting increasingly anxious as Modern Monday approaches, because the number of new and interesting decks showing up for us to try out has notably slowed. Thankfully, however, I had a few good friends posting their lists to Facebook and Twitter from the Grand Prix and some of them looked quite spicy.
Today I’m taking a look at a Jund list – but not just any Jund list – that was piloted to an 11-4 finish by my good buddy Vidianto Wijaya. Take a look.
2 Grim Flayer
3 Platinum Emperion
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Collective Brutality
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Madcap Experiment
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Terminate
2 Thoughtseize
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Blooming Marsh
1 Forest
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
Sideboard
1 Collective Brutality
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Blood Moon
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Painful Truths
2 Golgari Charm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Yes, you’re seeing things correctly: this is a Jund list with a Madcap Experiment/Platinum Emperion package. Truth be told, there aren’t that many decks (or cards) that can deal with an 8/8 creature in the format. Abrupt Decay can’t touch it. Lightning Bolt certainly can’t. We’re basically looking at things like Terminate, Path to Exile, Kolaghan’s Command, and like, I don’t know, Slaughter Pact? It’s not an ideal situation and I can definitely see why Vidi ended with the record he did. Let’s see if we can do the same.
Wow. That was quite an experiment. A madcap experiment, if you will. (I’m sorry, it was too easy.) I’m not sure if Vidi was the original creator of the deck or not, but I was definitely impressed by it. Just as I mentioned, there were certain decks that simply couldn’t deal with a Platinum Emperion. Like the Elves deck literally couldn’t win after one resolved short of us decking ourselves. Other matches like Death and Taxes were reliant on either blinking the Emperion with Flickerwisp, then winning that turn, or relying on drawing multiple Path to Exiles. Either way, it gives us a good deal of time to manage the board.
There’s actually not terribly much to say about the deck, as it’s a pretty standard Jund list. We have all the usual suspects in here, though to be honest, I might be interested in mixing Liliana of the Veil with some Liliana, the Last Hope; she’s just very good in a metagame of Infect and she also let’s us get back lost Grim Flayers and Tarmogoyfs.
Vidi actually had two copies of Lost Legacy in his original sideboard, but he said they weren’t as good as he’d like them to be. I asked him what he would rather have and he said that Chandra, Torch of Defiance could be a good addition, so that’s how they made it in there. I was also reasonably impressed with the new four-mana planeswalker. Four damage kills a lot of things in Modern and the card drawing/damage ability isn’t irrelevant. We can also cast a Madcap Experiment off of her mana production if we have six lands in play, so lots of options here.
Ultimately this deck is basically a Tier 1 strategy with an extremely strong combo element that has some really productive tilting elements. Be sure to let me know what you guys think in the comments and thanks for reading and watching!
