FNM and Vengevine Jund

4x Dragonskull Summit

2x Evolving Wilds

3x Forest

3x Mountain

3x Savage Lands

2x Swamp

4x Verdant Catacombs

4x Raging Ravine

4x Bloodbraid Elf

4x Goblin Ruinblaster

4x Lotus Cobra

4x Putrid Leech

4x Vengevine

2x Bituminous Blast

4x Blightning

4x Lightning Bolt

4x Maelstrom Pulse

Sideboard:

3x Terminate

4x Cunning Sparkmage

2x Deathmark

2x Malakir Bloodwitch

2x Consume the Meek

2x Consuming Vapors

I ended up coming in 3rd place in a field of 18 players.

Round one I faced a U/W control deck that I dispatched pretty quickly. All I saw out of the deck between both games was a Wall of Omens and Jace, the Mind Sculptor which I destroyed right away. This deck actually ended up finishing in the top 4 as well, so I don’t know if I just got lucky or he got bad draws.

Round two and three I faced both of my teammates running a Esper Conscription deck and a Mono White control deck. Both of those matches were very challenging and took a lot of thought to win. Going into the finals the Mono White deck had a chance to place in the top 4, but his match went to time and had to be called a draw.

I didn’t play round four because my opponent was also 3-0 and we were a lock into the top 4 no matter the outcome. He was running a classic pre-Eldrazi version of Jund. We played two games for fun one of which I took and he took the other. That seems to be the common outcome when facing the mirror.

The top 4 was made up of 2 Jund decks, a mill deck and the U/W control deck I mentioned above. We didn’t end up playing out the matches, just split the packs between the 4 of us. It was pretty late and we all wanted to go home and Sleep.

Overall, I would say the key to me placing this week was Goblin Ruinblaster. Running that main deck was something no one really expected and it turned the tables on almost every match. My general strategy was to cast Vengevine first, wait for my opponent to get rid of him, cast Bloodbraid Elf while saving a red mana to pay the kicker for the Goblin Ruinblaster if it was the cascade card,  trigger the dead Vengevine. Granted this did not happen all the time, but it happened sometimes. I also would just cast the Goblin Ruinblaster straight out with the kicker.  Cascading into a Putrid Leech or Lotus Cobra would also trigger Vengevine. Overall the deck is built to cascade into something useful almost every time. I think I decided to not cast the cascade card twice (both being Deathmarks) and all the other times it was either a creature or a Maelstrom Pulse/Terminate which I had a target for.

The majority of decks that were entered were aggro based (Vamps, Naya, Jund) which I built my sideboard for. Most of the matches I found myself siding in Terminates, Malakir Bloodwitches and Deathmarks.  I never sided in a Consume the Meek, Consuming Vapors or Cunning Sparkmage. I put in Consume the Meek for Eldrazi green decks, Consuming Vapors for Polymorph decks and the Cunning Sparkmages for Naya and other one drop decks, all of which I didn’t face. I haven’t made up my mind about my sideboard since I didn’t face half the decks I expected, but I am pretty comfortable with it.

I haven’t decided if I will run this version again (I like to change my Jund build up weekly) but its an option. I was very happy with the results and I feel like I can pull it off again.