Sweet and powerful decks in cube, Part 2: New Jund ft. Gyruda as Companion, Fires of Invention, Wildfire
I made an entrie write-up on the Companions from Ikoria. While I did not predict the exact deck in which Gyruda would be playable, I was spot on on wanting to draft Gyruda with 2 mana dorks in Green and Talismans (or Signets). It also turned out, that getting to play Gyruda as a Companion is easier than I expected ( I was very wrong on Zirda, that card has not been played as a Companion in my cube yet).
I put together this beauty, a new take on Jund which could compete which several deck including Simic Ramp, UW Control and Mono Red aggro. Here is the list:
Why was this deck good? The are multiple reasons:
1) The basis
The base of the deck are its 2 drops that ramp you, including cards like Paradise Druid, Steve, Mind Stone etc. These are crucial because we have no 3 drops, hence we want to play on-curve as often as possible. It is very well established that 2 mana dorks are generally good and playing 4 drops on turn 3 is powerful. What I noticed is that most of my true midrange (mainly Jund) decks don't really play a lot of 1 drops, as I don't run every 1 mana elf in my deck or 1 drop aggro creatures because having too much of them reduces the treat density in my deck. Of course, nowadays the "vintage cube meta" shifts towards more aggressive "midrange" decks because traditional midrange can't really compete against the ramp-midrange hybrid UGx deck with their Baneslayer-Mulldrifter-hybrids (by "cube meta", I am referring to the traditional non-powered Vintage cube that aims for the most powerful decks and synergies, so good-stuff cards like Oko, JTMS, etc. are all included but there can be several archetypes which differ from cube to cube, let it be for example Splinter Twin, Aristocrats, Persist Combo, Artifact decks, Storm etc.). If you don't have a cube of that mentality, you probably don't have this issue.
However, I don't really like playing Gutterbones and Goblin Guides in my "midrange" deck. I want to jund'em out, not aggro'em out. This is however not that trivial. Trading resources 1-for-1 is not the most viable strategy anymore (in the vintage cube meta) and playing a true midrange deck lead me to losing more often than not. We need a real payoff for playing midrange and Gyruda is a perfect midrange payoff. It strictly forbids playing 1-drops. So a Gyruda deck can't ever be an aggro deck. It is also difficult to make a Gyruda ramp deck, because 1-mana dorks are crucial for such a deck. Gyruda decks can still be ramp-midrange hybrids and you can argue that this deck is exactly such a deck and that I am just abandoning midrange completely for ramp-midrange. I would argue that such a midrange-ramp pile needs Blue in the deck to have access to Simic, which includes most payoffs for such a deck like Hydroid Krasis. So, I think that this Jund deck is still a true midrange deck (of course this notion is very vague anyway and everybody can define midrange for themselves).
2) The payoff
The first payoff is obvious: We have one card more than the opponent because we have our companion. I should mention here that I initially wanted to play the Companions with the Errata, but in the first draft one player just played the Compansion like it is printed on the card. Because I don't want any more confusion in the draft, we now play them pre-errata, which makes them significantly more powerful. Having one card more by default is especially great for a midrange deck which normally wants to win by smart resource management, mostly in the form of 1-for-1 trades. What is smarter than having a free 2-for-1 without doing anything for it at the start of the game? In addition, the midrange deck often looses because it either does not draw the right answer or threat in the right moment. In the late game, midrange decks have trouble closing out the game which gives control decks enough time to outvalue you. Gyruda changes that.
The basis of the decks requires a lot of powerful 4 drops. The payoff here is not necessarily the 4 drops themselves, it is rather the amount of 4 drops that we have to play for this deck to have a viable curve. Most cube decks don't play eight 4 drops because they have 3 drops. Having more high CMC drops in the deck not only increases the powerlevel of the average card in your deck but also the frequency at which you draw them. There are plenty of good 4 drops like Rekindling Phoenix, Garruk, Wicked Wolf, etc. Solemn Simulacrum and Garruk are especially nice because they can lead to turn 4 Gyruda's.
3) The sweet stuff
What would cube be without interesting and awesome cards. One of the most fun cards that we got in recent sets has to be Fires of Invention. What is even better about Fires of Invention is that is it also extremely powerful. It essentially doubles your mana. However, you have to use that mana on separate occasions. You can't ramp out massive spells or planeswalkers like Ugin with Fires. You may only cheat out midrange threats. Fires has established itself as a solid first pick in my cube and gives Rx decks a real incentive to go more towards a midrange strategy. There are also a ton of little advantages you are getting with Fires because there are so many activated abilities in cube. In this deck, we have Incubation Druid, Icy Manipulator, Tasigur; even the Amonkhet cycling land.
Wildfire is awesome with mana rocks and fine with mana dorks and is a perfect fit for this deck. It does not kill Gyruda, Rekindling Phoenix or your planeswalkers and is a nice tool to combat control decks that heavily rely on their lands.
Mastermind's Acquisition is awesome with Fires of Invention. Tutoring for odd-cost cards is awesome, if it is Emrakul, it is even better.
Magmatic Sinkhole costs 6 and can be in the deck (it's about little things too).
Rating
Synergy: A-
Power: A-
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