Tribal Jund

Connor Bryant & Max Brown
September 15, 2016
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For a standard set, Eldritch Moon delivered a lot of powerful additions to Modern. One of these standouts, Grim Flayer, has revived the once extinct Abzan Midrange and revitalized Jund.

Those aren't the only ones though; Grim Flayer is now revolutionizing Tribal Zoo. Tribal Zoo has existed for years dating back to the beginning of modern. The deck is often a list of the heaviest hitters in all of the colors tied together with a very painful fetchland- shockland manabase. The payoff, besides having an all start cast of threats is the name sake of the deck, Tribal Flames. 2 mana for 5 damage is quite the deal, especially when combined with early beats by Wild Nacatls, Goyfs and Grim Flayers.

>Most of the older versions of tribal zoo featured more early aggressive creatures alongside some mana accelerants such as Noble Hierach. They even went as fair as Geist of St. Traft.

This version, played by MoxZZZ to a 5-0 record in a Magic Online league, is more closely related to the Jund/ Abzan lists we have seen. Jund splashing Lingering souls is not a new phenomenon but going as far as Path to Exile and Siege Rhino is not something I have seen before. Much like how Jund has always played the best cards in the format, this list is doing something similar. Getting its opponent dead is its main objective though.

The creature suite of Wild Nactal, Tarmogoyf, Grim Flayer and the singleton Siege Rhino hit the hardest for their respective costs. Lingering Souls provides synergy with the self mill of Grim Flayer and threats that are hard to remove; a combination espescially potent with the burn spells in the deck. Kolaghan's Command provides even more burn alongside rebuying creatures to continue the beatdown.

The extra colors come with some trade-offs. This deck is going to take a lot of damage from its lands and it has no hope of ever beating a Blood Moon. But with the trade offs, the deck gets the namesake Tribal Flames and incredible flexability. The sideboard has two blue cards, negate and snapcaster mage. Regular jund or zoo usually dont get access to these types of cards. The deck can adapt to any particular metagame due to its bevy of options. It has all 5 colors, finding an answer to your problem cant be that hard.

Tribal Jund is a hybridization of several long standing archetypes in modern and can adapt to the ever-shifting metagame. Look for this deck going forward in Modern Tournaments near you.