Saturday, April 18, 2015

Build of the Week: The Jund Overlord

Prossh is essentially everything that you'd want in a Jund colored general. He has the beatstick aspect of Karrthus while having the grindy value oriented play of Sek'Kuar. He is both a sacrifice outlet and a sacrifice payoff. He's a very competitive general and there's a reason for that, he is a swiss army knife for his colors, and recasting him only gives you more value! I seriously debating putting this list together over another Jund general, but he's so good that he just crowds out all the other options.

I started with my Ghave List here:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ghave-13-01-14-1/

The two of those generals are going to have a similar play pattern. They are going to want value etb creatures and grindy sacrifice stuff. That's the general way G/B is going to want to play. From the list I culled the following.

Avenger of Zendikar
Blood Artist
Carrion Feeder
Craterhoof Behemoth
Deranged Hermit
Eternal Witness
Oracle of Mul Daya
Puppeteer Clique
Regal Force
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Skullmulcher
Solemn Simulacrum
Wood Elves
Woodfall Primus
Yavimaya Elder

Chord of Calling
Collected Company
Vampiric Tutor
Ashnod's Altar
Birthing Pod
Gilded Lotus
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Phyrexian Altar
Sensei's Divining Top
Skullclamp
Sol Ring
Doubling Season
Earthcraft
Fecundity
Greater Good
Mana Reflection
Survival of the Fittest
Sylvan Library
Demonic Tutor
Explosive Vegetation
Hunting Wilds
Kodama's Reach
Living Death
Maelstrom Pulse
Natural Order
Skyshroud Claim
Tooth and Nail

That's a lot of cards! Many of them aren't going to make the final list, so lets start cutting things.
Regal Force is good, but since Prossh makes red tokens its a bit less good here. Its also competing with Skullmulcher for a slot as Dude That Draws Cards when it enters the battlefield. I think I prefer Skullmulcher for this deck, even though it doesn't get to turn the counters into creatures again like in Ghave. Woodfall Primus is a solid card, but we aren't going to have as many ways to get him back or go infinite with him. I also think the red persist rare, Furystoke Giant is better suited for the direction this deck is going. Collected Company is a stretch in Ghave, and definitely not worth the trouble in this deck without Saffi to piece together infinite combos out of thin air. Mana Reflection/Hunting Wilds can go. I'm not super pumped to resolve either in this deck. Same goes for Vampiric Tutor/Demonic Tutor and Survival of the Fittest. All of these are powerful cards, but I want Prossh to be a bit lower on the Bullshit scale. Adding more variance will do that better than anything else. Natural Order also gets the axe even though its great. This has a similar logic behind it but also we are going to be down on green dudes with Prossh making red tokens.

Now that we've carved out some space and picked a spot on the Bullshit Scale for our guy, what else do we want? The theme is value and sacrifice, but what else works well with Jund? Dragons! Lets get some stompy flyers in the deck:

Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
Boltwing Marauder
Broodmate Dragon
Destructor Dragon
Dragon Broodmother
Dragonlord Atarka
Dragonlord Kolaghan
Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury
Savage Ventmaw
Scourge of the Throne
Swift Warkite

We don't just want to jam any dragon into our deck. A run through of dragons in our colors shows these as possible options. I like the idea of running all of these but Scourge of the Throne and Dragonlords Atarka and Kolaghan are a bit outside our purview. I also considered cutting Savage Ventmaw, but since we are likely to have 2-3 global haste enablers the possibility of getting a 6 drop for free is really attractive.

Assuming we play 37 lands, that leaves 19 open slots. Into those slots go some Prossh specific cards and the best of Red.

Goblin Sharpshooter
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Disciple of Bolas
Farhaven Elf
Goblin Bombardment
Attrition
Fires of Yavimaya
Hammer of Purphoros
Vicious Shadows
Deathbringer Thoctar
Xenagos, God of Revels
Food Chain
Phyrexian Reclamation
Furystoke Giant
Xenagos, the Reveler
Madrush Cyclops
Yavimaya Dryad
Garruk, Primal Hunter
Seize the Day
Cauldron Dance
Night's Whisper
Sarkhan Vol
Sarkhan the Mad
Sprouting Thrinax
Stalking Vengeance
Chancellor of the Forge
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Reclamation Sage

This actually puts us at 10 cards over. I don't think the Sharpshooter is what we want. He's quite good but we want to use our slots on things that actually eat out dudes. Attrition is a powerful sacrifice outlet, but we don't really have the mana to use it appropriately. Garruk is also a great draw spell, but triple green is tough. Disciple of Bolas is less restrictive but probably the highest power creature we'll have is Prossh, who I don't want to just eat willy nilly. Yavimaya Dryad is probably the worst 187 value dude so it gets the axe until test proves I need more of those effects. Sarkhan Vol can't be counted on to had around as a haste enabler. I could have cut Madrush Cyclops instead, but I've always wanted to play that card. Sprouting Thrinax is a great throwback to the Jund that this deck is intended to play like, but not really good enough at any one thing. That still leaves the deck heavy. The area that we are most overloaded on is the dragons. Cutting the borderline ones, Destructor Dragon and Savage Ventmaw drops us to only needing one cut, and I think we can do ok with 36 land to start. Its a bit low but we have a ton of value ramp guys and artifact mana,

The final list:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/18-04-15-prossh/

Thanks for reading!
Things I'm looking for on first play through are how did the mana work? Do we need more land? Do we need more of a color? How easy was it to get ahead on cards? Is playing the game almost completely at sorcery speed worth it? Do we need more dragons or less? Is the combo aspect of the deck too consistent? Are there other value creatures that we want in the deck, like Vulturous Aven/Phyrexian Rager?

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