TarmogoyfTarmogoyf | Art by Ryan Barger

Hello! Welcome to 60 to 100, a series where I take beloved decks from 60-card formats and convert them to Commander.

The time has come to tackle my most requested deck on 60 to 100: Modern Jund (). This is a deck with a storied history in the format that's beloved by just about everyone. I missed the boat on the classic version of Jund, as Modern Horizons 2 was only a couple months away from release when I first got into Modern. That release split Jund into two variants: "Boomer" Jund and Jund Sagavan, with the difference being the extent to which each variant embraced the new Modern Horizons technology. In this article, I'm going to return to 2015 and look at Boomer Jund before that prefix was necessary.

The Source Material

Jund's game plan is fairly straightforward: make one-for-one trades with your opponent until you're both out of cards, then win the top deck war. The early game is filled with ThoughtseizeThoughtseize, Inquisition of KozilekInquisition of Kozilek, and cheap removal to grind your opponent down. Winning the top deck war was a function of drawing into independently powerful haymakers, like Bloodbraid ElfBloodbraid Elf, TarmogoyfTarmogoyf, and Scavenging OozeScavenging Ooze, and establishing a fast clock against an opponent while they stumble through the rest of the game.

The story behind this particular list is also worth telling. Reid Duke, a player I find myself writing about a lot in these articles, traveled to Grand Prix Singapore with the intention of playing a Goryo's VengeanceGoryo's Vengeance deck. He needed to do well at this tournament to secure Platinum Pro status for the next season of competitive play. As Murphy's law would dictate, he ended up losing that deck somewhere along the 30-hour trip, and was left with only one other deck on his person: Jund. He registered it in the Grand Prix, finished well enough to secure his Platinum status, and got a great story out of it.

Choosing a Commander

There were quite a few powerful commanders to consider in these colors. For a while, my top contenders were Korvold, Fae-Cursed KingKorvold, Fae-Cursed King and Slimefoot and SqueeSlimefoot and Squee. I don't think either of them are bad choices, but I have one complaint about them: they're too easy. Getting value out of Korvold or Slimefoot and Squee isn't particularly difficult, and they both feel fairly generic as a result. Enter: Soul of WindgraceSoul of Windgrace.

The goal of my build of Jund is to grind the game down to a top deck war with symmetrical discard effects, then deploy Soul of Windgrace to create an imbalance in that war. Each turn, Soul of Windgrace adds to my pile of lands and provides the ability to take a redraw when my draw step gives me a land with his second activated ability. Even better, he can protect himself and provide incidental life gain, something that will undoubtedly be necessary in the grindy games this deck is into.

Key Cards for Jund

In an average Commander game, the other players are going to spend the first few turns casting their ramp spells. Just like in 60-card formats, ramp strategies are more vulnerable to discard because by they'll be out of cards to cast by the time they've made enough mana. With that in mind, step one is getting everyone's hand size as low as possible. Here, I'm using symmetrical discard, like Delirium SkeinsDelirium Skeins, Bottomless PitBottomless Pit, and Liliana of the VeilLiliana of the Veil, to get the job done. Once there are enough lands in play to cast Soul of WindgraceSoul of Windgrace, I really don't feel any attachment to the cards in my hand anyway, so the discards aren't particularly painful.

Deploying independently powerful, mana-efficient threats is the goal moving into the middle stages of the game. These are typically creatures with removal or card draw attached, or creatures that are problematic in combat. Glissa SunslayerGlissa Sunslayer checks both of those boxes, offering repeatable card draw and enchantment removal and a body with first strike and deathtouch that is nigh impossible to attack into favorably.

A Jund deck would feel incomplete without Lhurgoyfs. TarmogoyfTarmogoyf is present in this deck, but its two cousins, BarrowgoyfBarrowgoyf and PyrogoyfPyrogoyf, are significantly more interesting. Barrowgoyf provides pseudo card draw in the form of milling and RegrowthRegrowth-ing a creature when it connects, which synergizes very nicely with the graveyard strategies I'll dig into later. Pyrogoyf is a stronger version of the notorious Flametongue KavuFlametongue Kavu, a creature that can come in and pick off an opposing creature. Notably, Pyrogoyf triggers when another Lhurgoyf enters as well, and that won't be hard to take advantage of in this deck.

The Staying Power to Jund 'em Out

The biggest perk that comes with building a deck that aims to create a low resource late game is that I get to build my deck to excel under those conditions, and the other players at the table likely did not.

Life from the LoamLife from the Loam is the highest impact contributor to late-game dominance. Once Life from the Loam's dredge ability is being used each draw step, the card advantage it generates will be nearly impossible to contend with. First, it offers nearly unlimited access to Soul of WindgraceSoul of Windgrace's activated abilities. Second, the suite of lands with cycling and channel abilities, like Barren MoorBarren Moor, Boseiju, Who EnduresBoseiju, Who Endures, and Takenuma, Abandoned MireTakenuma, Abandoned Mire, offer repeatable card draw, recursion, and removal. With a fully stocked graveyard, Life from the Loam can effectively be a green Ancestral RecallAncestral Recall.

SixSix is capable of recurring any nonland permanent in the deck while also serving as a source of incidental mill. The important tie-in with Life from the Loam and Takenuma is that there's never a reason to be afraid to mill with them in the deck. As long as I can find Life from the Loam and Takenuma, I can recover Six, and then any nonland permanent in the deck. From there, Six can retrace Shigeki, Jukai VisionaryShigeki, Jukai Visionary, which can then recur Seasons PastSeasons Past. It won't be very often that this exact chain of recovery is necessary in a game, but its existence frees the deck from having to cling to key cards in the hand or think twice before attacking with BarrowgoyfBarrowgoyf. Nothing that goes to the graveyard is permanently inaccessible.

Winning the Game

How does this late game staying power convert to a win? The answer is a little complex. At face value, it's engines that generate creatures or life loss, like Kroxa, Titan of Death's HungerKroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger or Tarmogoyf NestTarmogoyf Nest. Perhaps the title of "win condition" even trickles down to planeswalkers, like Liliana, Waker of the DeadLiliana, Waker of the Dead. However, all of these options have one thing in common: they aren't fast, and they don't really work if your opponents are able to peel good cards off the top of their deck a few too many times. So what's my plan for that?

Eventually, be it their commanders or creatures they were fortunate enough to draw, I have to assume your opponents will eventually be able to build a board full of creatures. In the mid-game, there may only be one or two of them, which spot removal can solve by itself. Once there are more than just a couple threats in play, the solutions need to scale up. That's where Spectacular ShowdownSpectacular Showdown, Kardur, DoomscourgeKardur, Doomscourge, and Mizzium MortarsMizzium Mortars come in. An overloaded Spectacular Showdown or one enters trigger from Kardur can force two opponents to kill one another. Mizzium Mortars can buy several additional turns of attacking uncontested. Either of these are enough to be game winning on their own.

Jund Commander Deck List

Conclusion

Building Jund is the most daunting task I've had on this series so far. Everyone wants to see it, everyone loves it, and I have pretty high expectations both for myself and for the deck. The timing was perfect, with Tarmogoyf returning to Standard with the release of Reality Fracture, and I've been mulling over how I'd adapt this deck for well over a year now.

I'm placing this deck in Bracket 2 (Core) for all the reasons one would expect. There are no Game Changers, the deck is looking for a scrappy game that lasts upwards of 10-12 turns, and there's nothing too fast or oppressive happening in the deck. The early game mass discard may not be every table's cup of tea, as with nearly any slightly unorthodox strategy in Magic.

How would you build this deck differently? Does this deck feel true to the Boomer Jund ethos? Let me know in the comments.