Welcome back to another week of Ideas Unbound. Sorry for the lack of content, lately. I am going to try to post something weekly, but that is not always going to happen. I will soon be playing a lot more Magic Online so, hopefully, I will have more to write about as well as some video content.

This past weekend, I attended the Star City Classic in Knoxville. I ended up 5-3 and dropped before the last round. Not my greatest performance, but certainly not my worst either. Today we are going to look at my results.



I ended up playing Jund at the tournament. This decision was made based on several factors. First of all, Jund is just a good deck. It is a deck full of cards that are powerful on their own. You don’t have to rely on drawing the right combination of cards to make your deck work. This is one of the reasons I wouldn’t want to play a deck like Bant Hexproof. I feel it is too dependent on drawing the right combination of cards. The other reason I chose to play Jund is because I’m very familiar with the deck. I have been playing Jund for a while and I didn’t have the opportunity to test a lot for this event. I hoped my familiarity with the deck would help overcome the lack of testing. If you are don't have time to test for an event always play something you know. Don't try to take something new.

Here is the list I settled on for the event.

3 x Scavenging Ooze
4 x Huntmaster of the Fells
3 x Olivia Voldaren
4 x Thragtusk

1 x Liliana of the Veil
2 x Garruk, Primal Hunter

1 x Rakdos Keyrune
4 x Farseek
2 x Rakdos’s Return
4 x Bonfire of the Damned
2 x Tragic Slip
2 x Putrefy
1 x Dreadbore
1 x Mizzium Mortars
1 x Doom Blade

2 x Kessig Wolf Run
2 x Dragonskull Summit
3 x Blood Crypt
3 x Rootbound Crag
4 x Stomping Ground
3 x Woodland Cemetery
4 x Overgrown Tomb
3 x Forest
1 x Swamp

Sideboard
2 x Liliana of the Veil
2 x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 x Rakdos’s Return
3 x Ratchet Bomb
2 x Golgari Charm
1 x Abrupt Decay
1 x Doom Blade
1 x Tragic Slip
2 x Pillar of Flame


The list is a pretty stock Jund list. I made a couple of changes to the sideboard based on discussions with Matt Norton (he writes the Skullcrack column here, supposedly…). I hate that I have to play Golgari Charm in the sideboard, but I don’t really want to lose to Burning Earth, so it is a necessary evil. With Brian Kibler’s GR list becoming more and more popular there will definitely be more Burning Earth showing up soon and I need to be able to handle it, thus, the smattering of basic lands in the main as well as the Golgari Charms.

Ratchet Bomb was another card that I had not really considered in Jund and was a suggestion of Matt’s. The last time I played Ratchet Bomb, I got to pair it with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, and it was fantastic. However, that deck had a lot of artifact synergy and could make use of the ratchet bombs even when I didn’t need to crack them. However, after Saturday, I’ve seen the light of Ratchet Bomb again.

Ratchet Bomb has a lot of utility against many of the decks in the format. It is obviously great against the myriad token based strategies that have been popping up lately. It is great against the human based aggro decks. It does work against Bant Hexproof allowing you take out multiple auras at once, or getting around the hexproof of their creatures. And, in a suprising twist, it is actually useful against Jund as well. Do you know what the converted mana cost of a Ravager of the Fells is? That’s right: 0. Playing a Ratchet Bomb against Jund and leaving it at 0 is a great way to deal with Ravagers and the token that the Huntmaster produced all in one swoop. It is also great in the Thragtusk mirror as well.

Imagine this scenario: You have a Ratchet Bomb on 0 and a Thragtusk. Your opponent also has a Thragtusk. If you attack with your Thragtusk, and your opponent blocks, both of them will die. Because it is your turn, your Thragtusk will trigger first, but that means your opponent’s will resolve first. After your opponent’s trigger resolves, you get the opportunity to crack your ratchet bomb, killing your opponent’s token before your's comes into play.

As for the tournament itself, there isn’t much to tell.

In the first round, I played against a guy playing a 4-color Sliver deck. I’m not sure if Slivers have potential in Constructed. His deck was alright, but he had mana issues. I believe a good Sliver deck in constructed is going to need to be at most 3 colors and one of those colors has to be green. Because he stumbled on mana, and I had a couple timely Ratchet Bombs, I was able to win.

The second round was a Jund mirror and this was when I realized how good Ratchet Bomb could be in the mirror. I say mirror, but his deck was a little different because it splashed white for Blood Baron of Vizkopa. This is not a change I support, because the mana is definitely strained at that point. While it did allow him to pull out a game against me, it certainly wouldn’t be consistent.
I did make a mistake in this round which cost me the match. My opponent attacked with a Wolf token and activated Wolf Run pre blocks, tapping out to do so. I chump blocked with my Wolf token completely forgetting my Rakdos Keyrune, which would have just killed his Wolf token. The extra damage and loss of my own Wolf token certainly cost me the game and subsequently the match. Remember to always pay attention to the current board state and evaluate all of your options before settling on a line of play.

Round 3 was against Bant Hexproof.

I’m going to take a moment here and go on a little rant. This deck infuriates me like no other deck in the history of Magic. I don’t usually react so strongly to a deck, but this one just gets to me for some reason. First of all, I can understand why someone would want to play this deck. It is capable of the best nut-draws in the format and its best draws are practically unbeatable. However, if you choose to play this deck, we cannot be friends as long as you choose to do so. I think most of my anger comes from the fact that I have never once beaten this deck in sanctioned play. Not once. I will be so glad to see these cards rotate out of Standard like no other card in the history of Magic and I’m glad Wizards has started pulling back on future hexproof cards.

Anyway, in case you couldn’t tell, I lost this round.

The next round I played against a RUG control deck. He won game 1 and I resolved Ruric Thar in games 2 and 3 and that was the end of that.

I don’t recall the next three matches that well, but I remember several Jund mirrors which I won. Ratchet Bomb is the real deal folks. The last round was another Jund Mirror, but he was playing Desecration Demon. I probably could have won this match until he drew 12 cards with Garruk because his Demon had gotten six counters on it, before I could find a removal spell to kill it. I’m not sure if Desecration Demon fits in Jund, but it seemed to work for him, so it is something I’m going to look into as well.
All in all, I was pleased with my performance on Saturday. I definitely recognized a few mistakes I made and wish I had them to do over, of course. I haven’t had a lot of time to play lately and I can tell it is affecting my game. As I mentioned earlier, I hope that is changing soon, but we will see.

That’s it for this week. As always, feel free to post any questions or comments.

Eddie