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By: Arctic_Ghost, Arctic_Ghost
Feb 02 2021 1:00pm
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It can be hard to make Jund work in the Pauper format. Whether you go aggro, midrange or some type of control shell, trying to pair Black, Red and Green cards together rarely ends up working out. It also does not help that the mana base for Jund in the Pauper format, historically, hasn’t made it very easy for the Shard to keep on curve with what the rest of the meta is doing. You can play powerful cards, but deploying them at the same pace your opponent is playing their cards was always difficult.

However, while looking through the 5-0 dump from 1/6/2021, I found a fascinating deck list that was piloted by the player Saitama. The deck takes some of the most powerful cards from each of the 3 colors and molds them together into one fun and powerful deck. I’ll stop rambling now and just get into the list.


Boarding Party
and Annoyed Altisaur – We’re gonna get these 2 creatures out of the way. Although the Pirate isn’t too impressive with only 3 toughness, (Lightning Bolt I am looking at you) it still hits hard for 6 damage and has the Cascade ability, making it extremely powerful in the long run. It also has haste.

Annoyed Altisaur is one of the more playable powerful creatures that Pauper has seen in some time, in terms of raw stats for the mana cost. A 6 power creature with 5 toughness is already hard to handle, but when you give it Trample and also get to cast a second spell for only 7 mana, it sometimes can just in the game on its own.

I am personally not happy with there are only being 2 copies instead of 3, as this deck seems to not mind going into the late game. However, with that being said though, you don’t have much ramp and can’t afford to draw them too early, only to clog up your hand and do nothing. This deck needs to keep on pace with the opponent and so any dead draw you get might cause you to fall behind just enough that it can be enough to snowball into a loss.

Elvish Visionary – I love this card and love seeing it here as well. It draws you a card, ramps you and a 2 power creature can still be good in combat.

Thorn of the Black Rose – Everyone is playing at least 1 Monarch creature these days and for this archetype that wants to go a little long and wants to play the control game against aggro, Thorn of the Black Rose seems like an easy choice.

Lightning Bolt – Not surprising to see this spell here. We all know what it is, so we will just move on. The reason you don’t see 4 is that the next 2 cards are basically the 3rd and 4th copy.

Abrade – One of my favorite removal spells in the format. Not only does it deal 3 to a creature, which is already good, but it also gives you the option to destroy an artifact. Honestly this card does it all.

Fire Prophecy – If you play standard, then you will recognize this card. In the Pauper format, you don’t see this much, but remember when I spoke about having dead draws that can lose you the game? This helps with that and is quite a good spell for this deck.

Pulse of Murasa – Not only does it gain you 6 life, being extremely helpful against any aggro or burn deck, but most of your creatures are power houses. This is an awesome spell for this particular deck. It can also do it at instant speed!

Night’s Whisper – Need to draw some cards for cheap? Here is a good way of doing that. Be careful though as it does lose you 2 life, which can be detrimental against aggro decks. You might look at Read the Bones and wonder why not that instead. That is because Night’s Whisper being only 2 mana is better for the curve, which matters more than the Scry.

Chainer’s Edict – If you have access to the color Black, it is usually a good idea to have an Edict effect these days. This one is usually the most powerful because it can be used again later thanks to the Flashback ability.

Cast Down – Hands down, the best removal spell in the format in my opinion. If you have access to it, then you should play some number of them.

Snuff Out – This is a decent removal spell to have for this archetype because you are going to be tapping out constantly. You do have to lose 4 life to cast this card for free, but it should save you life in the long run overall.

Suffocating Fumes – A mass removal spell is very powerful in any format. This one is great because it is an instant and has Cycling in the case you need to replace it. The fact that it gives -1 to all creatures instead of dealing damage can also be helpful because a damage prevention spell, such as Prismatic Stands, does not stop it.

Blightning – I have not seen this card a long time. It makes your opponent take 3 damage, but more importantly, discard 2 cards, which can generate a huge advantage for you. It actually is cool to see this card again.

Terminate – This is the 4th copy of Cast Down. Creatures with Regenerate show up from time to time, so having this can be helpful, despite it being ever so slightly harder to possibly cast.

Bonder's Ornament – Last up, we have one of the most powerful cards in the format today. In any deck that this card is played, it literally does it all. Be warned though, it is expensive to buy and it isn’t really replaceable.

The Manabase

Ash Barrens – You are playing a 3 color deck and being able to cast your spells is step 1. Ash Barrens is great because it can fix your mana or it can be a land to help produce mana. You have 3 bounce lands as well to return it to your hand if need be later on.

Golgari Rot Farm and Gruul Turf – Here we have some bounce lands that allow you to possibly keep greedy opening hands and they help produce 2 colors for the price of one land.

Jund Panorama – You really don’t see the Panoramas from Shards of Alara in the Pauper format. However, in this archetype it serves as the 5th copy of Ash Barrens and it does help.

Bojuka Bog – As always, graveyard strategies are very popular in the Pauper format today, this land helps a lot with that.

Mortuary Mire – This one returns a powerful creature from the graveyard and can be used again with your bounce lands. Considering how powerful your creatures are, I would say Mire is quite a powerful land in this archetype. Sacrificing playing a few Swamps that you can fetch in exchange for playing Bog and Mire is worth it in my opinion for this archetype.

Thriving Moor and Thriving Grove – You are playing 3 colors and more duel lands always help. The reason not to play more bounce lands is because you don’t want to have a high possibly of having opening hands with just bounce lands. We don’t want to auto mulligan all the time.
The rest of the mana base are just basic lands. No need for any extra help and you don’t want more that enter the battlefield tapped because you are already a very slow deck.

The Sideboard

1 Chainer’s Edict – If you need extra Edict effects, here you go. I also think having an instant speed Edict effect, such as Diabolic Edict, is also a good choice to keep your opponent on their toes.

2 Fiery Cannonade - It is unfortunate that your Llanowar Visionarys die to Fiery Cannonade, but you will need it against so many other archetypes that it is worth the sacrifice.

1 Electrickery – A board wipe spell is always a great thing to have in the Pauper format. Instead of having a 4th copy of Cannonade, you have 1 copy of Electrickery instead because it is 2 mana to possibly wipe the board, which can be huge when needing to do it early and still want cast another spell.

2 Gorilla Shaman – Always gotta have good answers against Affinity.

3 Pyroblast – Here is the best option you have against fighting anyone with Islands in their deck.

2 Serene Heart – Do you hate Bogles and don’t like losing to Heroic so easily? Here is a very good answer to both of those problems.

3 Weather the Storm – A great card against any Red aggro deck. This will gain you a ton of life and, more importantly, a ton of time so that you can take control of the game.

Verdict and Final Thoughts

I do like my Green control decks. You control the game and then win with big creatures that have tons of value. In this deck, you have a little ramp, a little discard, removal and big creatures. What more could you want?
 
There is, however, a bit of a problem. The Pauper format can be very fast and when playing a slow deck like this, there is a possibility that decks such as Burn, Stompy and RDW will just over run you too quickly because while you are setting up, they are dumping their hand since they are a mono color deck.

Against Tron, they will go bigger than you and against the blue archetypes, such as Izzet or Dimir Faeries, they are still fast enough to go aggro on you and keep up with you, because they will constantly 1 for 1 you with counterspells and removal of their own.

So this brings us to the question. Do I think you should play this deck? For the leagues yes, I think this deck is fun and will get you results. This deck is good against aggro and good against combo, but even they have the tools to beat you. It does have powerful cards than can beat control and Tron, it just will be an uphill battle.

As for the challenges, I would personally say no. I don’t think this deck is consistent enough to compete with the mono color aggro decks or the Spellstutter Sprite decks. Your mana base can and will eventually end up being slow, which alone can lose you the game and sometimes you can draw your big spells, but you can’t cast them fast enough. Think of it as drawing the wrong half of your deck at the wrong time.

I am not knocking this deck and I certainly don't think it is bad in any way. It is just that, In my personal opinion, I just don’t think this archetype will bring you many wins in the long run and you will end up with a losing percentage as opposed to a winning one. Again, just my opinion.

With all this said, do remember my words are not gospel and I will always encourage you to try a deck out. Do keep in mind however that results will vary. Let me know in the comments what changes you would make to this archetype and how it does for you!

As of writing this article, Saitama themselves wrote an article about the deck, which you find here. You will more than likely get a way better insight (including a sideboard guide) from them than you will from me. Check out their article now!

Would you like to compete in a free Pauper tournament with some great prizes? Head on over to Gatherling.com on Tuesday nights at 8pm EDT and play in our weekly Pauper Classic Tuesday's event! Join the chat #PCT to chat with us and feel free to find most of the competitors on Discord!

Thank you so much for reading! I will see you next time!