Tuesday Brewsday 17: Junderworld





Players and brewers have been clamoring for a competitive Jund list in pauper for as long as I can remember. However, there are two HUGE problem with putting together a decent list. Not only is pauper limited by its slow manabase, but the typical strategy for a Jund deck you might see in modern is already taken up by vastly more consistent Mono Black Control decks. I myself have tried affinity based variants, a Tron list, and a TortEx strategy all too no avail… actually the TortEx deck wasn’t half bad, but the old fashioned GB style just worked better. When Theros Beyond Death was announced and the Escape mechanic was spoiled I was hyped. Recurring threats that only get bigger, or enchantments that can continually be cast from beyond the grave!? Needless to say I immediately began brewing. What I came up with surprised even me, but is far from optimal I’m sure. Is it tier 1? Most likely not even tier 2, but it sure is sweet to play!





4 Chromatic Star

4 Navigator’s Compass

3 Underworld Rage-Hound

4 Satyr Wayfinder

3 Mother Bear

3 Loathsome Chimera

2 Thraben Foulbloods

3 Faithless Looting

3 Blightning

1 Firebolt

3 Flame Slash

1 Mogis’s Favor

2 Terminate

1 Eyeblight’s Ending

1 Pulse of Murasa

3 Jund Panorama

4 Ash Barrens

2 Swamp

6 Mountain

6 Forest

1 Bojuka Bog





I want to start out by discussing the manabase and how the deck’s one drops function to help glue it all together. In order to consistently have the colored mana needed to cast spells efficiently, the deck will more often than not take its first turn to set up. With cards like Ash Barrens and Jund Panorama I felt like it was necessary to have a turn 1 colorless play that helped filter colorless mana. It might not be necessary to always cycle Ash Barrens or crack the Panorama, and having both Chromatic Star & Navigator’s compass helps steer you in the right direction without giving up too much tempo. Chromatic Star draws you a card when you sacrifice it to get any colored mana source you need, and is also fuel for the escape & delirium mechanic. Navigator’s Compass gains you three life when it enters the battlefield, which comes in handy against burn and aggro decks, and allows any land to be used as whatever colored source you need. The deck relies more upon its red and green cards to set up and get going which requires the six/six split between mountains and forests. In addition to running two swamps, I’m also playing Bojuka Bog since the ability to exile an opponent’s graveyard is something I’m willing to include an etb tapped land for. This setup should allow you to cast everything you need to on curve, but I’m always open to ideas on how to optimize the manabase in case I’m over filtering or there’s something I’m missing.





Now let’s get on to the meat of the deck, it’s creatures. In the two drop slot is Satyr Wayfinder. This creature which costs 1G is the cornerstone for any graveyard based deck, which we most definitely are. When it enters the battlefield we look at the top four cards of our deck, put a land card from among those four into our hand, and put the rest into the graveyard. This allows the deck to achieve delirium and set up escape for later in the game. Underworld Rage-Hound is an aggressive red creature that cost 1R with a 3/1 stat line which must attack each combat if able. Three power and one toughness isn’t all that great, but when you can escape it from the graveyard by exiling three other cards and paying 3R to get a 4/2 creature, it’s actually pretty decent. The last creature here in the two drop slot are three copies of Mother Bear, a vanilla 2/2 when you first cast it. However, since I anticipate binning it in the yard more often than not I really like it’s ability to create two 2/2 bear tokens for 3GG and exiling it when she’s in your graveyard. It’s kind of like a pseudo escape mechanic where I don’t have to exile additional cards.





Loathsome Chimera is one dumb ugly creature, but I just love the flavor text on this card. For 2G you get a a 4/1 creature which is very aggressive but extremely fragile. However, if you exile three other cards from your graveyard and pay 4G you can return Loathsome Chimera to the battlefield as a 5/2 threat. The last creature of the bunch is Thraben Foulbloods. These zombie hounds cost 2B and come in as a 3/2 creature, but if you have achieved delirium it becomes a 4/3 creature that can only be blocked by two or more creatures.





When you’re running a graveyard based strategy and playing red, you better be running Faithless Looting. It’s the best looting spell in pauper allowing you to draw two cards and discard two cards for just one red mana. It also has flashback which you can pay 2R to cast it from your graveyard and exile it afterwards. This allows you to fill your graveyard with cards you’re likely to get back or don’t need, and dig for cards that you need immediately. Since we have a lot of creatures that can be useful while in the graveyard, it’s ok to be aggressively binning then so that you can hold on to removal and wait till the mid game to strike hard.





What is a Jund deck without Blightning? This card does so much work for 1BR by dealing three damage to our opponent and forcing them to discard two cards. This brings you a little closer to achieving victory and hopefully depriving them of resources or answers they were holding on to. I wish I could fit four in the deck, but slots were tight and I feel like having three alongside looting from Faithless and card draw from Chromatic Star was good enough.





On to the removal package. Lightning Bolt is an iconic magic card that is soooo good, but I just couldn’t bring myself to run it. I needed something that could kill 4/4s since affinity seemed like a bad matchup when I was running Bolt. That’s why I’ve opted for three copies of Flame Slash which deals four damage for R at sorcery speed. Firebolt is a great card to have in a graveyard based strategy since it has flashback and can be cast from the graveyard. Terminate is our catch all removal spell which kills everything in the format outside of Hexproof creatures. It’s a little hard on the manabase though since it costs BR which is why I’ve decided to only run two. Mogis’s Favor can pull double duty as either a pump enchantment giving our creature +2/-1 or removal for one toughness creatures. It also has escape which allows you to pay 2B and exile two cards from your graveyard to cast if from the yard and return it to the battlefield. Lastly the deck is running Eyeblight’s Ending as a “conditional” removal spell. For 2B you can destroy any target non-Elf creature at instant speed, which is great, but you may be asking yourself aren’t there better removal options? Well yeah, of course there are, but Eyeblight’s Ending is a Tribal Instant which counts as its own card type when you’re trying to achieve delirium, and it’s the little things that matter. All in all, the deck runs 7 different card types thanks to Eyeblight’s Ending counting as it’s own unique type.





3 Electrickery

3 Nihil Spellbomb

2 Serene Heart

2 Gorilla Shaman

1 Weather the Storm

3 Red Elemental Blast

1 Pulse of Murasa





One of Jund’s main problems in modern as well as Pauper is that it has a horrendous Tron matchup. In modern there are a lot of sideboard options to help mitigate the problems a Jund player faces. In pauper, however, you’re probably better off just rolling over and conceding. However, for those willing to try to take the beast head on, you’ll find Nihil Spellbomb and Red Elemental Blast to be your choices to side in against them.





You should always be prepared for burn, but it’s also a deck I hate losing to. For that reason I like to pack Weather the Storm if I’m playing green and Pulse of Murasa to take advantage of our graveyard.





Serene Heart is strictly there for the Hexproof matchup and you pretty much just need to pray you catch them off guard with it and have Electrickery back up to clear the board.





Speaking of Electrickery, you’re going to bring this in against certain variants of Stompy, White Weenie, Elves, and blue decks that run faeries. Against those faerie decks you’ll also bring in Red Elemental Blast and possibly a Nihil Spellbomb or two to stop Mystic Sanctuary shenanigans with Deprive/Tragic Lesson.





Gorilla Shaman is your one way ticket to a win versus Affinity. The mox monkey is best played on turn three when you’re able to blow up a couple of your opponent’s lands before they inevitably have Galvanic Blast to kill it. Here is the list on goldfish.





Welcome to the Junderworld! Will you be able to escape defeat? Hopefully you don’t become delirious trying to do so. I have a couple other Jund decks lying around as well, but I really wanted to showcase the new Theros Beyond Death cards. If you want to see those Jund decklists in future write ups you can always email me at Pauperpedia@gmail.com, and if any of you have submissions as well. Till next time folks, have a happy Brewsday!