Chris Taylor
Contributor
Unearth is also good redundancy here, since it's protection and a good fodder piece when you're going off
Let's do some ROUGH math here.... To deal 20 damage you need: 1 Aristocrat, 2-4 Artists, and 5-10 pieces of Fodder (depending on how many artists you have in play).
Not sure how others are looking to design this, but the sacrifice mechanic to me is more about reach. So you build a basic aggro or whatever shell and then you have a handful of cards that pay dividends for on death or LTB triggers. It helps with overextension, which is neat. You can drop 4 bodies on the board and know a wrath still nets 4 direct to the face (or more if with multiple triggers - say bombardment and blood artist).
If you manage to get something resembling an actual "combo" (for lack of a better term), where you get 3+ online, you essentially make it so virtually any move your opponent makes is fatal. With blood artist, bombardment and outpost seige in play, 3 additional bodies (plus artist) is 12 points of instant speed reach (16 point life swing). That's if you don't or can't attack. Obviously more if any of that can swing in during combat.
Earthcraft is degenerate, and I'm not sure it has a place in most of our lists. Cryptolith rites isn't far behind it. The mana burst you get is so powerful. You don't need anything else to make it powerful.
I’ve heard Standard described as an amorphous blob where there are a number of good cards and that the greatest skill is to know when and how to combine these cards for a given tournament.
It’s more about deck choice and positioning than skill with any one deck.
Modern is different. It’s not so much about piles of powerful cards as it is internal synergy and incremental advantage. Yes, Jund looks like a pile of good cards, and it is, but it wouldn’t be Modern Jund if the pieces didn’t work together well and there wasn’t a lot of synergy between the cards that gradually pull you ahead. Haymakers are rare (outside of Tron) and hard to resolve so it’s far more about efficiency and combinations of cards than Standard. There are decks that don’t play “normal” Magic like Lantern. Many decks may attack from the same angle(s) but they operate and must be answered in very different ways; think Zoo vs. Affinity. Your deck may change its matchup role based on who wins the die roll and which game you’re on.
Lands + spells of different costsI don't recognize that description of Modern Jund at all, there's barely any synergy.
I don't recognize that description of Modern Jund at all, there's barely any synergy.