Like A True Pioneer: Boomer Jund
An archetype requested with insane consistency to be a part of LATP, and one that is near and dear to many; Boomer Jund, has finally got its place in shine in todays LATP
Boomer Jund: The Full Story
An archetype requested with insane consistency to be a part of LATP, and one that is near and dear to many; Boomer Jund. Jund as a whole has not had too much representation beyond the sacrifice variety, whether it’d be of the Food or Bolas Citadel flavor. The classic idea of playing threats in a mid range strategy while destroying everything on sight in order to create leverage over your opponent, has been a role taken up by Rakdos Midrange. Missing key cards that make the Modern version work so well like Bloodbraid Elf, Tarmogoyf, and Liliana of the Veil – it proves to be a challenge to find the right card choices and to make the fan favorite work in Pioneer. So rather than try to reinvent the wheel and make it work as a 1:1 ratio with its Modern counterpart, let’s try and find synergies unique to the power level of Pioneer.
Looking to play a more toolbox oriented strategy, Delirium allows us to have a catch all answer via our deep creature base and flexible planeswalkers. Murderous Rider acts as a searchable piece of removal, Tireless Tracker for our grindy matchups, Ishkanah, Grafwidow is a great grab for spirits and UR prowess, Hazoret, the Fervent for closing out games, and Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger is synergistic with our graveyard strategy. Along the way, we have pieces of removal and planeswalkers that have proven their value amongst these colors, and additional creatures that act as card advantage or grave-filling. Then of course, all-star threat Graveyard Trespasser has to make an appearance in some form. One card that you may notice is absent from this list is Grim Flayer. Unfortunately, the list gets a bit dense in terms of making delirium work, and I’d rather have a card like Satyr Wayfinder immediately provide cards in the grave rather than a two mana 2/2 die to Fatal Push. The great thing about this strategy is that you are the most flexible type of deck in the format. Able to change on a whim to skew different matchups into your favor. Speaking from experience, as this has been a pet deck of mine since the beginning of the format, the deck is a lot of fun and genuinely has legs.
Taking a page out of Rakdos Midrange, this deck looks to generate value through forms of card advantage, removal, and dense threats. The usual suspects are all here, Graveyard Trespasser, Bonecrusher Giant, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Kroxa. In Rakdos, your main source of card advantage is Fable of the Mirror Breaker and to a lesser extent Bloodtithe Harvester. We have Fable here, as it’s proven to be an absolute all star card in the format, but the addition of green has given us Tireless Tracker. A welcome addition that can be a threat on its own if left unchecked – creates clue tokens to help us churn through our deck a bit more. Additionally, green grants the deck two more forms of card advantage in Riveteers Charm, which is arguably the strongest charm of its respective cycle, and Ziatora’s Envoy. Envoy was a bit too easy to brush off as forgettable in spoiler season, as a four-mana do-nothing card on entry that “dies to removal” is too slow even for Pioneer. In practice, however, Envoy’s blitz ability is far better than previously thought. Yes, it only gives you a single hit off of it, but sometimes that’s all you need. Otherwise, the deck is so dense with must-kill threats that the odds of Envoy sticking around for a turn is far more likely than you’d think. With proper tuning, I think this deck can genuinely become the Boomer Jund of Pioneer and act as a true threat to top decks in the format.
We may not have Liliana of the Veil, but we do have the purple gangster himself, Ob-Nixilis, the Adversary. The idea of this deck is to turbo out multiple copies of Mob Nix as fast as possible… playing low to the ground, and aggressively statted creatures that are recur-able after being sacked by Mob Nix himself. In addition to turbowing out our purple friend, we play a playset of Esikas Chariot, which creates bodies to protect our Obs, while also being able to attack and create copies of our Mob tokens! Worth noting, that as of this article’s writing, the interaction between Chariot and Ob Nixilis is still bugged on MTGO and does not result in creating a copy. However, it works fine on Arena so if you wanna try it out in Explorer for fun, have at it! Early game we will be able to chip away at our opponent’s life total a bit with our creatures, then get out multiple Obs to start draining our opponent’s life total as well. Once Ob is down, the fun begins!
Wrap up
The years have actually been kind to Jund with recent printings of exceptional threats like Graveyard Trespasser, flexible cards like Riveteers Charm, and potential power-houses like Mob Nix. Throw in cards from Jund’s past and you have a recipe for something sweet. I’m tired of Sac decks being the dominant archetype of this color pairing so many love with all their hearts – it’s time to bring back the midrange threat of Boomer Jund. We have so many tools at our disposal to work and fine tune these types of lists provided today. Or, be like a true Pioneer yourself and get to brewing up a unique idea unexplored in the format! Do you have a more low to the ground Delirium list featuring Grim Flayer? Or maybe a more explosive over the top Beatdown strategy featuring cards like Glorybringer? Well, if you want feedback on your brews or simply just want to show them off, become a Patreon and gain access to our discord where you’ll find a large community of our team and other Patrons to discuss ideas and show off brews!
