Art by Ron SpearsThis is a first attempt at a Jund Battlebox, intended to create a gestalt of all great Jund mirror matches from the last decade across all formats. Lots of work needed, but you gotta start somewhere.
The ideal gameplay is a "fair" mid-range face-off, with the early game involving resource trades and hand disruption. As the insane density of Liliana planeswalkers makes clear, the idea is that the late game will revolve around who's able to resolve and protect a Liliana for long enough to accumulate game-ending value.
To start, shuffle the Battlebox and split it into two piles of 50 cards, one for each player. Players start with a hand of 5 cards and the following lands available to be played from the command zone:
We got in another round of games last night and came to a few conclusions.
Game 1 was defined by my opponent dropping Phyrexian Arena and me never drawing into an answer, despite digging like crazy. 6-7 turns of good 1-for-1 exchanges later, he was up half a dozen cards. Despite my marginally better board state, it was basically over once I emptied my hand. On the other hand, I claimed a moral victory after reanimating a Lhurgoyf and having the Altar of the Goyf pump it--I think that was the play both of us were most excited by all night. In any case, our conclusion is that non-interactive card draw engines break parity too hard in this format, so I'm cutting the Arena. I think Mirri's Guile and Sylvan Library are fine for now, since the former involves going card-negative to sculpt a plan and drawing extra from Library requires a good chunk of life.
Game 2 got pretty spicy when my opponent dropped Chains of Mephistopheles on turn 2. It didn't do him a lot of good, but it did enforce what I think should be a feature of this box: getting card advantage requires a heavy investment. I'm cutting Chains because it didn't help my opponent at all (in fact, it felt really gross when I used Sorin the Mirthless to snag some extra cards anyways), but future selection will be done with the spirit of the Chains in mind.
We both had Wrenn and Six out at various points, and without fetches, it's super underwhelming--either of us would have traded Wrenn for a decent burn spell at any point. Since having lands in the command zone basically accomplishes what Wrenn does in Modern, it's an easy cut. I'm going to give Thrash // Threat a go. Quasi-burn at the same mana value, plus a nice modal effect, but with the possibility of a blow-out if you're not careful.
Kessig Wolf Run rotted in my hand most of game 2, so we're cutting it for Tarfire, to help Tarmogoyf live his best life more often.
I kept finding myself wishing for Ransack the Lab, so let's cut the low agency Tourach, Dread Cantor for it. I'd forgotten how much I hate playing against Hymn to Tourach.
All of that leaves green down a card, so I'm slotting in Dryad's Revival for a bit of recursion and graveyard value. Going along with the dryad theme, I've also added a Dryad Arbor to the land list. That adds both a forest and a free creature to boost a few favorite cards in the box.