One of my favorite things about Modern at the moment is how many different, varied approaches there are to build any archetype. While there are several established Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks in the format, there is no clear consensus on the best way to build any of them. There are talented pilots of Murktide, Omnath, Hammer Time, Living End and others who have been playing their respective decks for nearly a year now and have their own unique take on the decks they’ve taken the time to master. I find that for each deck, there are camps of players who subscribe to a particular deckbuilding style. 

There is probably no clearer example of archetype camps than the varied approaches to build Jund Midrange in Modern. Most of the camps are divided between the decision to play or omit Urza’s Saga or which of the many powerful three-mana spells Jund has access to are the best of the bunch. There’s a lot of nuisance when it comes to making these decisions, and I always recommend keeping an open mind when discussing the various options with your peers. Recently, I’ve been working on a Jund variant that breaks the deck’s traditional formula by trying to use Collected Company and Unearth to maximize the power of the various three-mana creatures that Jund has access to.

I’ve played and written about a few similar variants, some that rely on combining Goblin Bombardment with Mayhem Devil to deal massive amounts of damage. Other versions decline to play Collected Company in favor of more interactive spells, but rely on Unearth as a way to outgrind and overwhelm opposing fair decks. This new version combines the best of both of these ideas, getting to maximize the potential of Collected Company and Unearth by putting a plethora of three-mana threats into play as quickly as possible while not sacrificing card quality to play synergistic sacrifice cards like Bloodghast.  

Here’s a look at the deck list. When compared to more traditional Jund Midrange decks, I’ve found this version to be much better versus opposing Ragavan decks like Murktide, It’s also a stronger choice versus big mana strategies, cascade decks and Omnath, but does sacrifice percentage points versus spell-based combo decks like Tameshi or Song of Creation and is also worse versus Hammer Time and other artifact-based decks like Affinity.