The State of Modern: B/G/x Midrange, by Mat Bimonte
Remember the old days,
when Tarmogoyf was the best thing you could be doing for two mana or less in Modern? While it has almost certainly become outclassed by Death’s Shadow, I’m here to help remind you that Tarmogoyf is still one of the baddest creatures to ever grace the battlefield in Magic history.
Jund and Abzan have mostly been forgotten in the current Modern landscape. While decks like Grixis Death’s Shadow, Eldrazi Tron, and Affinity make up the majority of the metagame, I don’t think one of these midrange monsters should be as edged out as it seems to be.
Before we go any further we should take a look at a couple decklists and some of the notable differences between them.
The Decks
Jund, by Mat Bimonte
Abzan, by Mat Bimonte
Key Differences:
Lightning Bolt vs. Path to Exile: Ahh, the oldest argument amongst BGx players. This argument basically always hinges on what matchups you expect to face. Lightning Bolt is quite laughable against Eldrazi Tron, but has a very high upside against most other creature-based strategies in Modern. It also has the “hidden” mode of going straight at your opponent’s skull. Always analyze what type of metagame you expect to be playing and adjust accordingly.
Dark Confidant vs. Grim Flayer: This can also be summarized as card advantage vs. card selection. Obviously each creature has different benefits, besides the obvious stated above. Grim Flayer has the added bonus in the Abzan deck of putting Lingering Souls into the graveyard, so there is no shock that it is included over Dark Confidant in the Abzan lists.
Terminate vs. Abrupt Decay: As noted above, Lightning Bolt is laughable against the giant Eldrazi in the format, so supplementing them with Terminate is a logical choice in the Jund decks. Two mana creature removal is quite necessary in the format, especially in these BGx decks; however, there is a cost to Abrupt Decay with it not hitting anything above a converted mana cost of three. It does give you flexibility to remove problem permanents such as Liliana of the Veil and Rest in Peace, but you do lose some percentage points to one of the most played decks in the format by including it in your deck.
Kolaghan’s Command vs. Lingering Souls: We’ve talked about the metagame concessions, and if you expect to be in grindfests or expect to see a lot of Affinity, Kolaghan’s Command is the card for you to be registering. The many applications of the card make it an easy inclusion. Lingering Souls is a better card if you are expecting to play a lot of mirrors throughout your tournament. It is also a fairly aggressive and annoying card to deal with when everyone is packing “one for one” removal.
Raging Ravine vs. Shambling Vent: Raging Ravine is quite the clock. With less Lightning Bolt in the format, it also gains some small percentage points of not being dead the first time you activate it. Raging Ravine is certainly the more aggressive of the two lands. Shambling Vent has the advantage of being cheaper to activate, as well as being very annoying for aggressive decks to deal with. Lighting a creature land on fire instead of sending damage to your opponent is often the small difference between winning and losing.
What do these decks both do well?
First and foremost, these decks are great against other creature-based strategies. They are packed with 10-12 removal spells, discard, and powerful threats. If you are expecting to play against a lot of decks such as Merfolk, Affinity, and Burn, you can very easily tune your deck to demolish that type of field.
These decks specialize in discarding your opponents mostly out of the game, then slamming a threat that either draws you more cards, or clocks them very quickly. As someone who has died to Turn 1 Inquisition of Kozilek, Turn 2 Tarmogoyf, Turn 3 Lilliana multiple times, I can tell you their curve can be very harsh more often than not.
Bad Matchups
Anyone that is willing to go “over the top” of you is going to be a hard matchup. Traditional Tron decks have always been very hard for BGx to deal with. Karn, Oblivion Stone, Ugin, all of these are incredibly hard to deal with, especially in game 1 when your deck is filled with mostly useless removal spells. The Jund and Abzan players I have spoken to are mostly on the “I just give this matchup away” in sideboarding, and I agree that their slots can be used elsewhere instead of trying to win a 80/20 matchup.
Jund and Abzan have a hard time beating dedicated combo decks as well, such as Storm and Ad Nauseam, as well as Titanshift. Titanshift is another one of those near impossible matchups for the same reasons as Tron. You are packed full of removal spells, and they are hard to interact with, namely the top of their deck killing you a lot of the time.
The Untouchables
Tarmogoyf: Have y’all read this card 
before? In all seriousness, the BGx decks take full advantage of Tarmogoyf’s text box. Often having a Land, Sorcery, Instant, and an opponent’s Creature in the bin by the third turn turns this dinosaur into a fast clock.
10-12 removal spells: Now this is a little bit harder to pinpoint as each deck has access to various removal spells, but I wouldn’t be caught without at least 6-8 one-mana removal spells, including Fatal Push to complement Path to Exile or Lightning Bolt. The one-of Maelstrom Pulse is also mostly free.
Three Utility Lands: Whether this ends up being 3 creature lands or two creature lands and some utility land, this is a fairly free inclusion into the decks as well, and part of the reason these decks are so good. Lands becoming spells late in the game is a nice addition to help beat more controlling decks.
Liliana of the Veil and Scavenging Ooze: Play these cards. With nonsense like Delve cards existing, Scavenging Ooze is at an all-time premium. This card gets out of control fast, and is also one of your best threats against Burn. Liliana really needs no introduction. She is flexible removal and discard. If she is able to go unchecked long enough she can catch you up from unwinnable board states also. She’s arguably the most powerful planeswalker ever printed, and she is an auto inclusion.
The Flex Spots
Obviously within these
decks all of the removal is flexible. You can play a bunch of Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse if you’d like. More Lightning Bolts over Fatal Push, whatever you feel the metagame is going to be.
The other flex spots are for things like you see in the Jund deck such as Grim Lavamancer, Chandra, Torch of Defiance, and Olivia Voldaren. These are all powerful answers for different types of decks. I can’t stress enough how customizable this deck is, and how easy if is to win matchup you want to win while giving ground in others you care less about.
Abzan is a bit more limited in its flex spots, but there’s still a little wiggle room to do things such as play more Scavenging Ooze or bring Kitchen Finks into the main. The one-of Mishra’s Bauble may seem like an obvious candidate to cut, but don’t forget that it’s a free delirium enabler and a way to pump Tarmogoyf even more.
Gameplay
A lot of the gameplay elements to this deck are fairly easy to figure out as you are a 6+ discard spell deck, so you know what to play around, and how to navigate the game mostly. You will generally have more information about your opponent’s hand than they will about yours.
Starting hands are one of the hardest things to evaluate. Granted, there are some easy ones. I would say the low end of keeps is three lands, a threat, a mix of removal spells and discard. Most hands are keepable, and you are able to assess better knowing what matchup you are playing against. Scouting is very important, so make so to try and get a feel for the room you are in.
When sequencing your removal, you need to be practical about it. A lot of sequencing options revolve around format knowledge, so as I always preach, do your homework!
- Bolting creatures with 3 or less toughness is very obvious, but should we be holding our Bolts to damage our opponents?
- Fatal Push is a devastating one for one against opposing creaturelands, but also has the flexibility of removing some higher CMC threats. Always be aware of how threatening a card actually is.
- Path to Exile and Terminate obviously need to be prioritized for larger creatures and higher CMC threats such as Tasigur, Reality Smasher and Gurmag Angler.
- Maelstrom Pulse and Abrupt Decay are almost exclusively used on problematic permanents such as opposing planeswalkers and enchantments. They can be used as targeted creature removal, but should be your last resort, as your other removal is specific to creatures.
Sideboarding
Given how different both decks are, it is actually interesting to see how similar the sideboarding strategy is. Both decks have:
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Collective Brutality
2 Kitchen Finks
This says to me these are the six non-removable sideboard slots.
Digging deeper, each sideboard contains three dedicated pieces of artifact hate. Jund is playing two Ancient Grudge and a Shatterstorm, while Abzan is playing three Stony Silence, and to a lesser extent Golgari Charm. Golgari Charm doesn’t destroy artifacts, but it sure wipes out the x/1s in Affinity.
Each deck also contain another piece of hate for Dredge. A pair of Leyline of the Void for Jund, and a Flaying Tendrils for Abzan. This particular Abzan sideboard is more heavily slanted toward creature decks, with the inclusion of a Damnation, Sorin, Solemn Visitor, Maelstrom Pulse, and Blessed Alliance.
Tthe Jund deck is playing three Fulminator Mage to try and beat Tron lands, Control and Valakut decks. I hinted earlier that I would typically give those matchups away, which again depicts just how customizable this deck is. You can play things like Thragtusk or Engineered Explosives, which is what I would do in those slots to help bolster other matchups. Again, fit the sideboard to whatever suits your needs for a given tournament. Three colors gives you a lot of options.
Wrap Up
Jund and Abzan are two of the longest standing decks Modern has to offer for a reason. They are popular because they are very efficient in executing their game plan of discard, play a large threat, kill your stuff, attack you almost every game.
A large part of why this deck is so good, as I’ve drilled into the ground by now, is because this deck is extremely customizable. If you hit the matchups you anticipated, you will be a heavy favorite in post-board games.
To become a master of BGx decks you need to practice a bunch in order to sequence your removal correctly, as well as diagnose what threat your opponent plays demands which removal spell. A lot of professional players such as Reid Duke and Willy Edel prefer these types of strategies, and it makes a lot of sense, as they are able to tune their decks for each tournament they enter. If you play this deck a lot and make correct card selection decisions before the tournament, it will pay off.
Thanks for stopping by,
Mat Bimonte
Mat Bimonte first picked up the game during Theros block, but already has a Modern 5K championship under his belt, as well as a number of smaller Standard tournament wins. Based out of Bloomington, Ill., Mat is a regular on the SCG Tour, with future aspirations of qualifying for the Pro Tour.
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