"Jund 'em out!"
This deck seeks to recreate the gameplan of The Rock archetype, a.k.a. Junk, Jund, or GBx Midrange, from Magic: the Gathering — Disrupt, Remove, Overwhelm. In Sorcery's current cardpool, there are several cards that can push a positive trade in resources — or, in other words, answer two-or-more of the opponent's cards for the price of one of ours. With this deck, we intend to push those cards to their fullest, and with that core, fight a long-term attrition battle, forcing them to answer threats inefficiently while playing efficient removal of our own. In this primer, I seek to explain fully my thinking with the deck, but please let me know in the comments if you try this deck, what your experiences are, and what your thoughts are. Thanks in advance.
Compared to other Avatars.
Several Avatars can lead this deck well. can remove several minions in a turn, goes fantastically well with , and has the capability to develop the same sort of card advantage aims to. can potentially represent a "free" win condition, and punishes opposing and s. is able to develop your sites without the cost of ever having to draw from your Atlas. However, these avatars each lack two things: linear reliability, and preservation. In other words, they do not consistently show results during the turns they need to for this deck, and they actively encourage strategies that are jeopardizing at low life totals.
Sorcerer, on the other hand, does not need to move to be effective, which is relevant for our defensive sites (, , ), and its second ability is paramount to the deck's gameplan of always playing 2+ spells per turn in the mid-to-late game.
A.k.a. the "Boogeyman" Problem.
Combo-Control can easily become very difficult to keep pace with in the late game. The deck has access to and , presenting a very powerful card advantage combo in the late game, and Deathspeaker's ability to replay GWM and in the late game for their Genesis abilities presents easy 3+ spell turns, meaning they can answer threats and develop their own win condition very rapidly.
This deck aims to answer the Deathspeaker match-up by becoming the proactive deck, developing discard engines in the early game to force Deathspeaker into a non-optimal mid-game, where we can capitalize and gain both tempo and card advantage. Additionally, a considerable portion of the sideboard aims to keep pace with Deathspeaker and similar decks in the late game when the traditional Men of Leng strategy cannot be executed (see Sideboard Guide).
These cards are currently considered core to the deck's strategy.
- Anyone who has experienced a turn one or turn two Men of Leng followed by a the following turn knows full well the potential of this card. It is effectively a kill-on-sight card, demanding an answer quickly, before it can begin to cause issues. For clarity, Men of Leng combos with Grapple Shot (on a following turn) by having Men of Leng grapple onto the opposing Avatar, striking them once, and then striking them again as an action. Even in situations where this might kill the Men of Leng, ie. against a Battlemage, Avatar of Earth, or another equipped Avatar, this is worth it. Note: The number of copies of Grapple Shot change a lot with what minions I am currently testing, and this number will continue to change as I continue to experiment. The current number simply feels optimal to me at the time of the last update.
- This card is worded in such a specific way that allows it to truly shine, especially, I believe, in this deck. For two mana, it is near perpetually a four-power minion that is often impossible to remove completely and still feel good about it. It forces non-optimal decisions from your opponent, and is deceptively threatening. Consider this: in the situation where one is played early, ie. turn two or three, and removed on your opponent's following turn, their removal is essentially wasted the moment you can play and activate the second one, and in the scenario that both are answered, you have forced your opponent to use most likely some combination of , , or to remove just two power each. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't threat.
and - Core to many archetypes, both of these cards are capable of answering several cards for our one. They can be used to kill several minions, and to gain considerable mana advantage when they take out opposing mana-accelerants. Atlantean Fate also has the capability of shutting off the opponent from their ideal elemental threshold, acting as a pseudo extra-turn spell when played into an optimal situation. and - Core to many archetypes, both of these cards are capable of answering several cards for our one. They can be used to kill several minions, and to gain considerable mana advantage when they take out opposing mana-accelerants. Atlantean Fate also has the capability of shutting off the opponent from their ideal elemental threshold, acting as a pseudo extra-turn spell when played into an optimal situation.
- This card is pretty common, inocuous, and often overshadowed by 's instantaneous value, but its ability to ramp us quickly to our desired 5-6 mana goal puts it above Surveyors for me in this deck, despite the advantage of Surveyors (reducing the number of for-turn draws spent on sites/increasing the number of spells drawn overall), which is quickly mitigated by the Sorcerer's second ability anyway.
These cards are currently played, but not currently considered core, and have potential to be cut.
- This card was a difficult card to assess, but has so far been often game changing. It is pretty often difficult for most decks to remove cleanly, its a headache for Voidwalk-centric aggro decks, and complicates multiple combos, like + / and + . It has the advantages over of accounting for wasted overhealing, preserving your Avatar at Death's Door, and for doubling as a damage dealer.
- It may be easy to mistake this for the deck's win condition (more on that below), but I would classify it more as a card advantage engine, one which simultaneously threatens the opponent's life total. It cannot be understated how much more powerful casting your opponent's discarded is than the Bury in your hand. He is yet another must-answer threat that can quickly develop a huge swing in card advantage.
These cards are more likely to be cut, with specific reasons given for each.
- The value of this card comes largely in the ability to at best draw , and at worst draw a Core, and that's nothing new to anyone. However, I would argue that not all decks want Highland Princess. In this current build, I believe the deck does want her, not only because of the power of Stone in a three/four element deck, but because we play so many double-threshold cards. However, with only a few changes to the deck, that becomes considerably less relevant, and the deck's mana curve was specifically tailored to cast an average of two spells per turn in the mid-to-late game, making Stone less must-have.
And why they're overrated.
Eagle-eyed deck sharks might have noticed that this deck does not represent any particular win condition. No , no , no , and no . Not even a or ! This deck is looking to close games out slowly, with chip damage, and dealing the death blow with board presence, or a tutored or . My closest consideration that resembles a late-game beater so far has been , because it's so reliably difficult to kill. is also worth considering, as it's tutorable with . I also think is a pretty solid rate, but too weak to site-based removal. But against most match-ups, I haven't had the need for a traditional top-end finisher.
The deck typically wins by two methods. Designed to go long, the primary gameplan is to get ahead on resources, remove or disable threats, and amass an overwhelming boardstate. The other gameplan is the "gank" method, in which a tempo can hook the opposing Avatar, strike it for 5, and enable a scenario where you can strike the Avatar in your own site with several small threats, ideally . If curved out correctly, this forces the opponent to make horribly nonoptimal plays, and represents a very fast clock.
The Dexterity Dilemma.
For the time being, I will be testing this card again, and I'm willing to reassess my prior position. That said, I still believe the design of the card is fundamentally bad for the game.
I'm choosing to not play , because I don't believe the card is good for the game, and because it's impractical to play on Tabletop Simulator in a way that feels authentic to the card. That said, the card has a good probability of getting at least a 2-for-1, and is a very strong option, viable to replace one or two copies of .
Thanks for reading, I appreciate all feedback. More updates are to come. Enjoy!