The Lurrus ban in Modern has been a complete renaissance of the red/black/x midrange decks in Modern. There seems to be nearly no end to the different avenues to explore with this archetype, and so far in my testing one of the most promising is a new take on an existing powerful variant of Jund Midrange: Jund Saga. Jund Saga is a midrange deck that plays all the usual cheap threats and interaction that you see in these variants, but relies on Wrenn and Six to recur Urza’s Saga in the late game for a steady stream of constructs to overwhelm their opponents. Before the banning of Lurrus, Jund Saga was a deck that constantly fell in and out of favor in the format, frequently being one of the top decks to beat.
Like every RB/x deck that lost Lurrus, these are the main questions you should be asking yourself when updating it:
- What three and four-mana spells (if any) am I interested in playing to have a better late game?
- What cards do I need to cut to make room for these new three and four-mana spells?
- If I’m raising my mana curve with the Lurrus ban, how many extra lands should I play?
- What sideboard cards need to be replaced now that I don’t have Lurrus to recur them? (Common examples of this are Engineered Explosives and Soul-Guide Lantern)
With these thoughts in mind I’ve settled on the following list. I’ve been really impressed by it so far and think that the deck is both powerful, and has a ton of game against most of the existing metagame decks. It is true that like any deck that plays Urza’s Saga, you are more vulnerable to hate cards like Alpine Moon, and like any Jund deck, you have an unfavorable matchup versus the four-color Omnath deck.