Alara: Jund Devour (Modern) [Revisione 34]

A favourite of mine that has been a staple of kitchen-table play with my friends. Has changed a lot over the years, though it has never truly been optimized for competitive play. Imho, the "devour" mechanic, due to the self-inflicted losses with questionable gains that it requires, is not really meant for that anyway. The deck is about flavour and vibes before anything else, and yet, I have found it works quite well.

Since I am including a lot of the quintessential devour cards, this might as well serve as a primer, I guess. A couple of thoughts:

• In general, it is very important for devour creatures to have immediate effects on arrival, i.e. card draw, direct damage, haste, discard. Otherwise, the devoured creatures will have been consumed only for their consumer to immediately be removed from the board. Sometimes you will just have to roll with the punches. But minimizing losses is key. This deck is fairly casual. A more competitive approach would be to leave out Mycoloth and Hellkite Hatchling and to lean more into Tar Fiend. But they are just so much fun. :)
• The mana base is just what I had at hand. Has worked out quite well for me thus far. Since the current version of the deck is VERY creature heavy, Ancient Ziggurat is amazing. Might have to change if other spell types are cycled in. Adjust to measure.
• Mogg War Marshal trumps Dragon Fodder
• Birds of Paradise competes with Rampant Growth for ramp. The former synergises better with Bloodhall Ooze, though it is more easily sniped. Utopia Sprawl would be another solid idea here, fits better in the mana curve.
• Hellkite Overlord and Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund are there just for flavour and wholly unnecessary. Can be swapped for:
• Overwhelming Stampede. Amazing one-shot card. Just one Sprouting Thrinax and some tokens are usually enough. See pure token decks for a more stable version of this idea.
• Fists of Ironwood is an amazing card for this deck, change my mind. Gives Bloodhall Ooze some actual utility and vastly improves Mycoloth and Skullmulcher.
• Sprouting Thrinax has beautiful hot-potato energy. Block / destroy it and create more tokens? Or let its damage go through? Gives your adversary tough choices.
• As said above, Mycoloth is easily sniped and might go down without immediate gains. If it survives the round, it gets nasty though. God forbid you let it consume more than one token. Hard not to include. This one can win games on its own.
• Dragon Broodmother, as well as good old Predator Dragon are just solid.
• Thelonite Hermit has been a late addition. Fits well in the mana curve und provides boosted tokens. Though they might be devoured before their +1/+1 actually does anything.
• cards to think about: Obviously: removal spells. See sideboard and maybeboard. Also, Tukatongue Thallid is very solid and was only recently swapped with Bloodhall Ooze. Might change back in the future, depending on the token situation. We shall see. Synergies with "once a creature dies" effects are also obviously there.

Probably more to say, but I am rambling. Enjoy the deck, it sure as hell has been a flavourful blast for me!