r/CompetitiveEDH 3d ago

General Discussion / Question What is jund missing?

What does Jund need to become a good color combination? I'm referring to something already within its color identity. Of course counterspells would be useful, but it's never going to get them (except maybe blasts)

64 Upvotes

51 comments sorted by

127

u/LemorasCards 3d ago

Black hasn't got a staple level card since Beseech the Mirror 3 years ago. Neither red nor black have got a parasitic engine close to the level of a typical blue or white card, with green only having got its first with Cabbage Man.

30

u/magicmax112 3d ago

Green still gets a crazy good card every few sets tho, thats the only colour jund cant complain about right now

7

u/ThomasFromNork 3d ago

Yeah I think these days green is maybe the second best color in cedh. It's kinda wild actually bc just a few years ago I would have considered it the worst

11

u/magicmax112 3d ago

I have always considered red the worst but i do think white is creeping up aswell with the 3 grand abolishers we got in the last 3 years

11

u/ThomasFromNork 3d ago

I think red paradoxically has some of the least good cards, but also some of the most powerful cards in our format.

7

u/magicmax112 3d ago

Oh yeah cards like gamble and breach are definitely top top top tier but if im not 4/5c i really want more from each colour to consider them top 3

5

u/your_add_here15243 3d ago

Red was massively propped up by dockside before it was banned. Now red basically has breach, gamble, and the blasts. Honorable mention to ragavan, hexing squelcher and birgi

Edit: if your playing Roger then swat and duplication as well

3

u/magicmax112 3d ago

I rate swat higher i would play it in any 4 cost or less commander that you want to have out to win the game

2

u/MaetelofLaMetal 3d ago

I hope we soon get critical mass of pushed red staples so mono red decks can compete again well outside of like Magda.

12

u/Frost_man1255 3d ago

Ahh man. That was 3 years ago huh.

That was the last set I was around for at TCGplayer, shame they've self destructed with Ebay

49

u/Fun-Agent-7667 3d ago

Jund needs a way to have etali as Commander

3

u/ExtraPolishPlease Jund 3d ago

Amen to that.

5

u/ispoooooky 3d ago

Hypothetically you could [[Reaper, King No More]] as a jund way to play like a tasigur strategy.

102

u/FrostFallen92 3d ago

Blue.

18

u/manuelito1233 3d ago

The truth is here and it hurts.

56

u/mva06001 3d ago edited 3d ago

People will say it’s interaction, but the REAL answer is flash enablers. Jund will always need to be turbo, so they really need this more than they need engines IMO. Necro and Naus are your engines.

The biggest reason you can run Rog/Si reliably but not Rog/Reyhan is Borne Upon a Wind and Valley Floodcaller.

There’s no way to reliably convert an early Necro without sculpting and passing without access to flash. Plus then you’re limited to Swat, Flare of Dup, Red/PyroBlast, to protect your win, or someone just wins before you.

11

u/Spleenface Into the North 3d ago

I think it's a little broader than that, it's just "any way to reliably beat interaction". That can be flash enablers, countermagic, abolishers etc.

5

u/mva06001 3d ago

I could see a red flash enabler before I would expect any other pie break in terms of silences or interactions

3

u/CuratedLens 3d ago

It’s not a silence effect and not as useful, but hexing squelcher and spider punk shut off counter spells. Creature centered combos could use [[frenzied baloth]] but it definitely doesn’t stop bounces or winning over top.

1

u/mva06001 3d ago

And green has Dosan….and it’s not enough. You need to be able to storm off like Grixis can after a T2 Necro vs having to sculpt and pass. Thats just the difference.

There’s enough interaction and ways to slam a Breach if you could do it in your end step in these colors, you just can’t do it in your end step.

-1

u/Swaamsalaam 3d ago

Jund already has many ways to beat interaction: Squelcher, blasts, dosan, creature wins, bauble, dgrid, swat...

It just can't escape the turbo prison because it has no access to value engines as strong as Rhystic Study.

2

u/kevthecoder 3d ago

You can crop rotation into ezone, but still that’s only 1 flash enabler instead of the number blue gets you

2

u/mva06001 3d ago

Yeah exactly, and you also most likely need to find elvish spirit guide in order to cast the Crop Rot. It’s asking a lot.

2

u/Swaamsalaam 3d ago edited 3d ago

Literally all non blue decks are forced to be turbo in 2026. It's just the result of the fact that the most powerful mid/late game engine is blue and much better than all other mid-lategame cards. There are almost no decks that escape this pattern.

So I think you are pretty wrong here, there is probably no jund deck at all atm that would benefit from flash enablers.

2

u/mva06001 3d ago

Every single deck that could run Necro without blue instantly gets a massive boost with flash enablers in their color pie.

So would any deck that can make a lot of mana at sorcery speed and/or care about creature abilities that need to get around summoning sickness.

Which both happen to be specialties of Jund.

1

u/Swaamsalaam 3d ago

Ur right lol. I completely didn't think about necro. Although I doubt there is much use beyond it.

1

u/International_Bit_25 3d ago

Is magda turbo?

1

u/Swaamsalaam 2d ago

I would say so, yes. It has midrange play patterns but the main plan is to win fast.

1

u/HarperTheLad 6h ago

We have emergence zone for flash. But yeah we need more flash.

14

u/manchu_pitchu 3d ago

red flash enablers and green parasitic engines.

7

u/TT850 3d ago

If Korvold had access to white I would shed a tear of happiness. Jund has tons of speed and high synergistic cards but lacks a lot of the best engines / interaction in the format.

12

u/Witty-Source-236 3d ago

Dockside extortionist 

5

u/Ihasnonam3 3d ago

For one the best black cards we will ever get have already been printed

4

u/ItchyCaregiver631 3d ago

More 2 color MDFC's to make Oops all spells better (rainbow MDFC when?)

4

u/MosinNagant100 3d ago

What's your win line in oops without blue?

2

u/ItchyCaregiver631 3d ago

[[Necrotic Ooze]]. You get creatures for dread return with Poxwalkers and bridge from below (and other methods if you sacrifice rog for any reason). After you get Ooze on the field you make infinite mana with Devoted Druid and [[Morselhoarder]], your wincon is basically any manasink ability you can think of

1

u/MosinNagant100 3d ago

Interesting, I've only ever done 5c oops with retiring thoracle

2

u/ItchyCaregiver631 3d ago

Jund oops is fun. Ive enjoyed playing the deck. It puts out wins consistently fast and not many people expect it

3

u/ispoooooky 3d ago

Krark reyhan when?

3

u/Automatic_Bad_504 3d ago

There is no agency, without good counterpells or silence effects you're just floating in the wind while your opponents develop and if there is a faster deck than you (which is likely because all the meta turbo decks are not jund) you'll just lose to them unless your opponents save you. I personally love jund but would never register a jund deck in a tournament because you have awful matchups into most things that are good in the meta.

3

u/afailedturingtest 3d ago

The ability to not lose to someone naturally having thoracal consult in their opening hand

2

u/DankensteinPHD 5c turbo 3d ago

Breach feels so much more wonky without blue ngl

2

u/FCalamity 3d ago

I would say Jund has two categories of problems:

-you ability to handle Thoracle Consult is red blasts and... opposition agent? so you're kind of hoping the rest of the table has some number of blue decks other than exactly one

-you're always going to be worse in slow games than Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study (I do love a Sylvan Library, but let's be real), but you DO have all the fast mana and very little to protect your own wins (red blasts, again, plus veil of summer), so you're kinda obligated to try to be fast. but even if you build to be faster, you're not actually a whole turn cycle faster, so if you're not in seat 1... see the first bullet point.

2

u/quesadillakid 3d ago

2 mana multi opponent thoughtsieze

2

u/Skiie 3d ago

dunked on by slop.

1

u/Darkinsanity98473 3d ago

Give back Dockside Extortionist for starters.

1

u/Pikawika4444 3d ago

Good cards

1

u/Swaamsalaam 3d ago

Nothing. There are multiple very successful jund dargo pilots.

1

u/Rusty_DataSci_Guy 3d ago

Black or Red need in color / flavor appropriate variations of [[silence]] and / or [[grand abolisher]]. IMO it fits Black better since it's a variation of dominance and removing someone's agency but I can also see Red making itself uninteractible due to sheer force of will. Red has precedence with squelcher and [[overmaster]]

Green has precedent for these with Dosan and City, more of that could work too. Also give green 2 more veils to round out the seasons.

Red needs more free redirect and misdirect effects, like parity with Blue's free counters.

I'd rather see Jund (moreso Rakdos but this thread is about Jund) get more tools to just smack Blue into the audience than become more Blue.

1

u/Maleficent_School671 3d ago

This is the decklist I have been playing in Tournaments. Last weekend I went 2/1/2 in the Swiss. 7 outta 61 overall. The loss in the top 16 couldn't be helped. Seat 3 had a Smothering Tithe on the field. Seat 1 Demonic Tutor'ed for Wheel of Fortune and cast it because they had OBM on the field. Seat 3 then casted Into the Floodmaw on OBM and Mystical Tutor'ed Ad Nauseam on top of their deck. Wheel of Fortune resolved. If it hadn't resolved I had win on my turn.

https://moxfield.com/decks/dG-LmjhgIUyRfZ3iyQA7pw

-1

u/DragonDiscipleII 3d ago

Instant interaction stax/life cost.