JOOONDING the PTQ

After an embarassing 2-3 drop at GP DC playing Mythic Conscription, while Brian Demars finished 63rd with my jund cards, there was no way I was playing anything other than jund at this PTQ. Ari shipped me his updated list that he had top 24'd the GP with, and after I made the changes I felt were necessary it was time for some JOOOONDING.


First off, here's the list I played:
4 Savage Lands
4 Raging Ravine
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terremorphic Expanse
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
3 Mountain
3 Forest
3 Swamp

4 Leech
4 Thrinax
4 Elf
2 Seige-Gang
2 Broodmate
2 Lotus Cobra

4 Bolt
4 Blightning
3 Pulse
2 Bit Blast
2 Sarkhan
1 Terminate

Sideboard:
3 Doom Blade
3 Duress
1 Grim Discovery
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
2 Prophetic Prism
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
1 Sarkhan
1 Bit Blast
1 Pulse

Some explanations of card choices:
Lotus Cobra:
With its already awkward mana base and the rise of spreading seas, jund has been in need of a mana fixer/accelerant for a while. While at PT San Diego the top decks were playing explores or rampant growths, cobra provides mana acceleration alongside a 2/1 body, which is actually acceptable to cascade into. Between being able to provide another attacker to get damage past a wall of omens, or eventually trading with an opposing bloodbraid elf, the 2/1 is very good.

3 Pulse:
While many people claim that 4 is now necessary, it was clear going into this event that jund was going to be by far the most popular deck, and pulse is pretty terrible in the mirror. I was perfectly ok having the 4th in the board.

Broodmate Dragon:
Ari claimed that garruk was the nuts and played 2 instead of my 2 dragons. I had tested garruk, and in well over 90% of games, I found myself wishing that I had broodmates in that slot instead. After confirming with stu how damage could be divided with Sarkhan's -4 ability, I was set on dragons.
For those of you who aren't aware (since many of the people in the event were mind blown when I did this), Sarkhan's -4 ability reads: "Each dragon creature you control deals damage equal to its power to target player". Since this means that each dragon is a separate source of damage, you can actually divide the damage between the defending player and their planeswalkers if you choose. I had an insane blowout in testing where I had a broodmate, the token, and a 5/5, and used the -4 ability to kill a gideon on 4, a vengeant on 4, and a jace on 5.

Grim Discovery:
With the mirror match post board being pretty much determined by dragons of various types, having a way to make sure you get to 5 mana is important. Discovery can counter a blightning, and also sometimes you just rebuy a fetchland and a bloodbraid, which is pretty insane itself.

Master of the Wild Hunt:
Great vs. the bant and naya decks, and actually fairly acceptable in the mirror, since most people board out some amount of removal. While master is never a complete blowout, it's always solid, and helps the consistancy of the deck in the matchups where you most want to be consistant.

0 Goblin Ruinblaster:
Ruinblaster was only ever good in the mirror, and with the rise of cobra, as well as the geopede/vengevine lists, jund decks are playing less non-basics now compared to before the GP. It's pretty embarassing to play this guy unkicked, and cascading into it without the mana to kick it is equally terrible. The hype around this card really involves all of the blowouts that occur when someone plays multiple blasters on the play, but the card is far too inconsistant to be worth the slot.


On to the matches:

Rd 1: Vamps
Played a reletively young girl with vampires. Highlight of the match was when she inquisitioned me, whiffed, then next turn played another inquisition, saying "I just wanted to see what you had again"

2-0

Rd 2: UWr
We were deck checked at the start of this round, and I received a game loss for having an extra unsleeved card in my deck box, which from the judge's perspective could be considered part of my sideboard.
Game 2: I open with t3 blightning, t4 elf into blightning, t5 elf into leech, and after attacking him down to 1 show the 3rd blightning for lethal.
Board: -4 Bolt, -2 Blast, -1 Terminate, -1 Dragon, +3 Duress, +2 prism, +2 Witch, +1 Pulse (I'm ok not having doom blades in this matchup, although they're good vs. straight UW)
Game 3: I keep a hand with savage lands, verdant catacombs, 2 duress, prism, elf, pulse. He doesn't do anything for a few turns, and I am able to duress him twice, leaving him with nothing but a path and a wall of omens. Unsure about the order of things, but I ended up playing 2 elves, 2 blightnings, and when he finally rips and elspeth I pulse it. Near the end he misclicks and places a day of judgement on my thrinax, then backs up and o-rings it. He was DOB to wrathing, but o-ring into wrath next turn would let him live. I then proceed to duress his wrath, saying "sometimes you just gotta know".

Rd 3: NL Bant with sparkmage/collar
My opponent this round was playing a varient of the NL bant deck, with vengevines and value dudes, but less planeswalkers and the stoneforge mystic/collar/sparkmage package.
Game 1: He plays a t2 knight of the relinquary, which I have removal for, and after trading some early drop creatures, I rip a broodmate to end things pretty quickly. Sarkhan gets to -4 for the kill.
Board: -4 Blightning, +1 Sarkhan, +1 Pulse, +1 Blast, +1 Master
Game 2: My opponent plays a vengevine on 3, elspeth on 4 and starts making dudes. I have the pulse for elspeth, and his venge and 1/1 try to race my elf+thrinax. In this matchup, the jund player wants to be aggresive anyway, since trading with vengevine is not really a good idea, and you have plenty of ways to get ahead. I end up ripping a broodmate to make the game not close, but would have won the race as is without it.

Rd 4: Vengevine Jund
Game 1: I have t2 leech, which I end up trading with a vengevine since he doesn't have anything else and I have the read that he can't rebuy. I play a couple thrinaxes, which go all the way when all he has is a sarkhan, but no creatures.
Board: -4 Blightning, +1 Sarkhan, +1 Grim Discovery, +1 Blast, +1 Master (blightning is bad due to venges, and pulse is fine due to him having more things I'm ok with pulsing)
Game 2: I have removal for everything he plays, and a unanswered seige-gang kills him pretty quickly. It's worthwhile to note that my manabase involved 6 basic lands this game, and he played an unkicked ruinblaster, which was not an acceptable counter to seige-gang.

It's worthy to note that in this round I was at table 4, and able to see what was going on at the top tables. It turns out that 11 of the 12 decks at tables 1-6 were jund, with just 1 NL Bant guy.

Rd 5: Traditional Jund
Game 1: I win the roll and play t3 thrinax, t5 sarkhan, t6 broodmate. He dies pretty fast
Board: -3 Pulse, -4 Bolt, +1 Sarkhan, +1 Grim, +1 Blast, +1 Master, +3 Duress (in talking with Ari earlier in the event, he brought up boarding in duress on the draw as an answer to sarkhan, which I thought was a fine idea, since bolt gets much worse on the draw as well)
Game 2: He has inquisition for a thrinax, but I have another, and sarkhan gets there while he never draws his 4th land, and only manages an unkicked ruinblaster, which doesn't do very much.

5-0, time for some well, deserved McDonalds battles. Not wanting to get a burger immediately before playing a win and in, I just got one of their orange creme shakes, which was pretty much the best idea ever. Going into round 6 I was pumped and ready to secure a place in top 8.
*end random product placement*

Rd 6: NL Bant
Game 1: I bolt an early mana guy, then play elf on 4 into thrinax. He appears to be land flooded, and my 2nd thrinax into sarkhan end things pretty quickly.
Board: same as rd 3
Game 2: his only relevent creature is a vengevine, while I have elf into leech, forcing his vine to stay home. My t5 seige-gang followed by elf into pulse for his gideon kill him in 2 turns.

Rd 7: ID
Rd 8: Although there are people at x-2 who I could theoretically help out by dream crushing my opponent this round, I get paired vs. Basem, who I'm more than happy to draw in.

12-0 in played games in the swiss. Is.


After talking with Bas, DJ Kastner (who is also in top 8), and some other people who have been scouting, we determine that the top 8 is 4 jund players (1 vengevine jund) (1 me), 1 Esper control (Bas), 1 UW (DJ), 1 NL Bant, and 1 Mono-red runeflare trap. I'm not really looking forward to jund mirrors determining the invite, but it ends up not coming down to that.


One of the judges makes an announcement telling players who think they're in top 8 to sort their decks for the top 8 deck check, and I sort mine, then help Bas resleeve and sort his deck. when standings come out, I'm in first (obv), and am paired against the mono-red guy.

The deck check gets underway, and when I get called back to the table, it becomes apparant that my opponent had not sorted his deck for the deck check, is sitting at the table with his deck spread out, and confirming that everything is correct. I pretty much get to see his entire deck, and not that his only creatures are kiln fiends and goblin guides, while he has 4 howling mine, 4 font of mythos, and burn spells.
Game 1: My opponent mulls to 6, and his blisteringly fast draw involves t1 valakut, t2 goblin guide +teetering peaks, t3 kiln fiend, t4 valakut, go. I have a t3 thrinax, t4 elf into leech and start bashing. He plays a font of mythos on 5, which of course draws me into 6 points of burn to kill him. Also had the pulse for the font, but didn't play it as I didn't want my oppoent to realize that his plan was slightly flawed. Nice. Deck. Bro.
Board: -4 Blightning, -2 Sarkhan, -1 Dragon, -1 Seige-Gang, +3 Duress, +1 Blast, +3 Doom Blade, +1 Pulse. (since he's on team howling mine, I figures pulses got better and blightnings got worse. I figured his correct board plan involved cutting the artifacts, but after what had already happened I figured he didn't understant)
Game 2: I keep a hand capable of playing a t3 thrinax, with a pulse and a seige-gang to close things out. I take 14 on his turn 3 from a kiln fiend, bolt, burst lightning, and teetering peaks. Thrinax holds down the ground but a staggershock and some other burn spell are enough to hand me my first loss of the day.
Game 3: I curve leech into thrinax into elf into elf. Goblin Guide was on chump duty, by which I mean he was still dead on 5.

I'm the first quarterfinal match done, and while waiting for the match between DJ and NL Bant guy to finish, I watch Bas lose a very close match to Vengevine jund. He won game 1 just before my match ended, but lose game 2 to his opponent ripping elf into guy to rebuy vengevine after esper charm hit his last 2 cards. Then in game 3 his opponent had 2 cobra, 2 elf, and 2 vengevines. Even though his opponent misplayed and missed a free vengevine rebuy by playing cobra before playing his fetch and 2nd vine, the jund draw was too powerful.

Top 4: Vs. DJ Kastner with UW
Game 1: I mull to 6, and am forced to keep a reletively slow hand since it can beat a spreading seas. DJ has a t2 wall of omens, followed by a t4 elspeth, and I don't have any way to deal with it before it gets out of hand. A bolt keeps it off ultimate, but I die to 1/1 and celestial colonnade beats before I can draw an answer.
Board: Same as round 2 (from scouting, I know that doom blade is less relevent vs. him, and I want to make the list as aggresive as possible)
Game 2: I have an early leech and thrinax, and along with a couple blightnings and a bloodwitch I am able to get him down to 4. He wraths, and my tokens attack him down to 1, but he follows up with gideon and martial coup, while I fail to draw anything at all to deal the last 1.


A very dissapointing end, since going into the top 8 I felt like I had good matchups all the way through. I had already beaten 3 of the top 8 players in the swiss (my rounds 4-6), and my quarterfinal matchup was pretty much a bye. Dj ended up losing in the finals to the traditional jund player who was the other undefeated player in the swiss, although mana screw pretty much determined 1 1/2 of the games.
Cobra Jund was definitely the best deck in the tournament, and if you're considering PTQing with anything other than bloodbraid elves in the near future, you're wrong.